Five Required StreamsPaper & card, plastic, glass, metal and food waste
The 2026 rules
What Simpler Recycling Means for London Households and Businesses
Simpler Recycling is the government’s reform that ends the postcode lottery of recycling collections across England. From 2025 onwards, every council and every workplace must collect the same four core dry recyclables – glass, metal, plastic, and paper/card – plus food waste as a fifth separated stream. Garden waste stays optional at the council’s discretion.
The reforms roll out in three phases. Businesses with 10 or more employees had to be compliant by 31 March 2025. Households across all 32 London boroughs came into scope on 31 March 2026. Micro-businesses with fewer than 10 employees, plus kerbside plastic film and carrier bag collections for everyone, complete the rollout on 31 March 2027. Most Londoners feel the change in the form of new caddies for weekly food waste and a more consistent set of recycling rules between boroughs.
For businesses, missing the deadline carries real cost. Where the Environment Agency investigates non-compliance, it now charges £118 per hour of officer time back to the business under cost-recovery rules. Repeat or wilful breaches can lead to compliance notices, fixed penalties, and prosecution under the Environmental Protection Act. Read the full government guidance on the GOV.UK Simpler Recycling workplace recycling page.
Any London Waste runs Simpler-Recycling-compliant collections for offices, shops, restaurants, schools, surgeries, and SMEs across all 32 boroughs. We supply per-stream containers, schedule weekly or fortnightly rounds, and email a Waste Transfer Note after each collection so your duty-of-care paperwork stays in order. New customers get a free site audit before signing – we tell you honestly what you need, not the largest contract we can sell.
Households
What Changed for London Households on 31 March 2026?
From 31 March 2026 every local authority in England, including all 32 London boroughs, must collect the same standardised set of recyclable materials from households. The four dry recycling streams are paper and card, plastic, glass, and metal (cans, tins, and foil). On top of that, councils must run a weekly separate food waste collection, with sealable caddies provided as standard.
Most London boroughs already collected food waste, but the rules were uneven – some boroughs only took peelings, some required compostable liners, and some skipped flats above four storeys. The reforms remove those gaps. Wherever you live in Greater London, your council must now offer the same five streams to your address.
Garden waste sits outside the mandate. Councils can charge for garden collections or skip them entirely – that is unchanged. Plastic film, including bread bags, cling film, and carrier bags, joins the kerbside scheme by 31 March 2027.
10+ employees
Businesses with 10+ Employees – Your Deadline Was 31 March 2025
If your business or non-domestic premises has 10 or more full-time equivalent employees, you should already be arranging collection of the four core dry recyclables and food waste as separate streams. The rule applies regardless of how many staff are on site at any one time – it is calculated across the legal entity. A 12-person consultancy with three offices is in scope at every office.
Common gaps we still see in London workplaces a year after the deadline: one mixed-recycling bin that combines glass with paper (no longer compliant), no food waste collection in office kitchens, and confidential paper going straight to general waste because nobody set up a separate stream. Each of these is a potential breach.
Schools, charities, places of worship, healthcare premises, hotels, restaurants, retail, and offices are all in scope. The few exceptions are very small premises with no contracted waste collection and certain agricultural exemptions – if in doubt, treat yourself as in scope.
Micro-businesses
Micro-Businesses: Prepare Now for 31 March 2027
A micro-business is one with fewer than 10 full-time equivalent employees. Two part-time staff on 0.5 FTE each count as one FTE, so a coffee shop with eight part-timers at 0.5 FTE is four FTE total – well inside the micro-business definition. By 31 March 2027 every micro-firm must arrange the same separated collections as a larger employer.
If you are currently using domestic-style bin bags or sharing a building’s general waste, you have roughly twelve months from May 2026 to set up a compliant arrangement. The realistic prep steps are: book a free waste audit to see what you actually generate, request quotes from at least two licensed carriers, agree weekly food waste plus fortnightly mixed dry recyclables and glass collections, and update staff so the right bin gets the right item.
From the same date, kerbside collections of plastic film and carrier bags also begin at every premises in England, so any retailer that bags up film waste separately will be able to put it out for council collection in 2027.
What goes where
The Five Core Streams – What Goes Where
Paper and card
Cardboard boxes, paper packaging, printer paper, magazines, newspapers, junk mail. Greasy pizza boxes go in food waste if very contaminated – the clean parts can be torn off and recycled.
Plastic
Rigid plastics with a recycling symbol – bottles, pots, tubs, trays, milk cartons. Plastic film, bags, and cling film are separate until 2027. Black plastic trays are technically accepted under the new rules but many MRFs still can’t sort them well, so confirm with your carrier.
Glass
Bottles and jars, rinsed. Drinking glasses, Pyrex, and window glass are not glass-recycling-stream items – they have different melting points.
Metal
Food and drink cans, aerosols (empty), aluminium foil, foil trays, metal lids. Larger scrap metal goes through a separate scrap metal route.
Food waste
All food waste – cooked, raw, meat, fish, dairy, bones, plate scrapings, peelings, tea bags, coffee grounds. Composted or sent to anaerobic digestion. Compostable liners are recommended; standard plastic bags are not accepted in most boroughs.
The 2027 add-on
Plastic Film and Carrier Bags – the 2027 Add-On
By 31 March 2027, kerbside collections of plastic film must be in place for households and non-domestic premises. This covers bread bags, freezer bags, fruit and vegetable bags, salad bags, courier mailers, and carrier bags – effectively any flexible plastic that scrunches in your hand. Until then, the only routes are large-supermarket front-of-store film bins (Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Co-op) or specialist commercial collections.
For retailers, packaging-heavy offices, and hospitality, this is worth planning for. If you currently put plastic film in general waste, separating it from 2027 cuts your residual waste tonnage – which lowers cost as well as carbon. Talk to us 6–12 months ahead so we can quote a balanced contract that reflects the lower residual volume.
Enforcement
Penalties and Enforcement Under Simpler Recycling
The Environment Agency leads enforcement against non-compliant businesses. Its toolkit, in escalating order, looks like this:
Compliance notice – a formal letter requiring you to put compliant arrangements in place by a deadline. Ignoring it is itself an offence.
Cost-recovery charges – the Agency now bills £118 per hour of officer time spent investigating non-compliance. A multi-site investigation can run into thousands.
Fixed penalties – for specific offences such as failing to keep Waste Transfer Notes.
Prosecution under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 – rare, but available for wilful or repeat breaches; fines have no upper limit at Crown Court.
In practice, most businesses caught by a routine inspection are given a compliance notice and a sensible deadline. The trigger for harder enforcement is usually missing paperwork rather than the bin set-up itself, so make sure you keep your Waste Transfer Notes for at least two years.
How we help
How Any London Waste Makes Compliance Straightforward
We run Simpler-Recycling-compliant rounds across all 32 London boroughs. A typical small-business set-up looks like this:
240-litre or 360-litre wheelie bins per stream, sized to your weekly volume after a free site audit.
23-litre lockable food caddies for kitchens, with a 240-litre external food waste bin for collection.
Separate food waste collections (the law requires food waste to be kept apart; GOV.UK suggests weekly or fortnightly) plus fortnightly mixed dry recyclables and glass.
One contract, one invoice, one phone number – no separate carrier per stream.
Waste Transfer Note emailed within 24 hours of every collection – your duty-of-care record stays current.
Annual recycling-rate and tonnage report for sustainability or ESG submissions.
For one-off needs – a non-compliant supplier you need to replace mid-contract, an office move, a sudden audit – we can step in within a few days. Call 08 00 599 99 96 or send a photo of your current bin set-up on WhatsApp for a same-day quote.
At a glance
Simpler Recycling at a Glance
The three deadlines and what they cover.
31 March 2025 – businesses with 10+ employees
31 March 2026 – all London households
31 March 2027 – micro-businesses and kerbside plastic film
The rules permit some streams to be co-mingled. Paper and card may be collected together. Plastic, metal, and glass may also be combined into one mixed dry recycling stream, although many councils and businesses keep glass separate because mixed glass damages the cleanliness of other materials. Food waste must always be separate, and paper and card may not be mixed with the wet streams. In practice most London businesses end up with three bins plus a food caddy.
The threshold is in full-time equivalent (FTE) employees. Two staff at 0.5 FTE count as one FTE. Eight part-timers each on 20 hours per week (0.5 FTE) total four FTE, so the business is in the micro-business band and has until 31 March 2027. Volunteers, contractors, and agency workers are not counted as employees for this rule.
If the premises operate as a business, you are a non-domestic premises and the workplace rules apply – even if you are above or below a flat. Mixed-use buildings where the same bin store serves residents and a ground-floor shop typically need two separate arrangements: residents’ bins under the council scheme, business bins under a private contract with a licensed carrier.
No. Garden waste is not a core stream under the regulations. Councils may charge for garden collections or not offer them – that is unchanged. Businesses that generate garden waste (landscaping firms, grounds-maintained estates) still need a compliant route, but it does not have to be part of the same contract as the five core streams. We can quote it separately as a garden waste collection.
Confidential paper is still paper for Simpler Recycling purposes – it has to be separated from general waste. The destruction obligation under UK GDPR is separate but compatible: we shred under chain-of-custody and recycle the shredded fibre as paper. For high-volume confidential waste, see our paper shredding London service.
The duty falls on the producer of the waste – that is your business. Even if the landlord arranges the contract, you are responsible for the materials you put into the bins. In serviced offices and shared workspaces this is usually handled through the building management with a single multi-tenant contract; ask to see the Waste Transfer Note covering your stream. If it is missing or only references general waste, the building set-up is non-compliant for your purposes.
On 1 April 2027 a micro-business that is still using only a general waste bin becomes non-compliant. The Environment Agency typically issues a compliance notice on first inspection, giving a window (often 28 days) to put a compliant arrangement in place. Ignoring the notice escalates to fixed penalties and, in serious cases, prosecution. The cheapest route is to set up the contract a few weeks before the deadline rather than try to do it under enforcement pressure.
For a 10+ employee business, yes. Paper and card alone is not enough – you also need separated collections for plastic, metal, glass, and food waste. The good news is that adding food waste is often the biggest win: it cuts the weight of your general bin sharply (food is heavy and wet), which usually lowers what you pay for general waste collection. Depending on your volumes, the full set of streams can cost less overall than one large general waste bin.
Yes – that is the model we recommend for most SMEs. One contract, one carrier (us), one Waste Transfer Note covering every stream. It is administratively easier than splitting collections across multiple companies, the rounds can be sequenced to one collection day, and you only need to keep one set of records. We are happy to quote single-stream contracts where it suits the customer, but most London businesses opt for the combined service.
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