Commercial Waste Toolkit
Welcome to the Commercial Waste Toolkit
Commercial waste – otherwise known as trade waste, non-household or non-domestic waste.
Alongside household waste service provision, local authorities (LAs) have a statutory responsibility to provide or facilitate a service for commercial waste upon request. With recent legislation and policy changes many LAs are now looking more closely at their commercial waste services.
Commercial waste services are often an overlooked element of Recycling and Waste Management services but with the right focus they can yield successful outcomes for your authority. The commercial service is linked to an LA’s overall reputation of service delivery and is often interweaved with wider waste budgets and service delivery costs. LAs have a duty to recover costs and can make a reasonable profit via their commercial waste service.
Is your commercial waste service ready for to meet the required changes stemming from policies such as:
- Simpler Recycling – (applies to English LAs) From March 2025 all non-household municipal premises in England (such as businesses, schools and hospitals), must have arrangements for the separate collection of paper and card, plastic, glass, metal, food waste, and garden waste. If you deliver an LA-run commercial waste service, are you ready for the required change in service provision? If you provide the service through contractors, are they ready?
- Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) for Energy from Waste – (applies to English LAs) From 2028, emissions from Energy from Waste will be included in the UK’s ETS. Are you ready to incorporate the resultant increase in costs associated with the residual commercial waste stream?
- Workplace recycling regulations (applies to Welsh LAs) – already in place (2024) – have you planned a review to ensure your commercial waste service is as efficient as possible, is meeting the needs of the workplaces you serve, and is securing suitable income?
This toolkit is designed to help waste officers review and consider their approaches for paid commercial waste services. The toolkit is flexible enough to be used for various needs such as:
- Exploring new legislation changes.
- Developing a commercial delivery strategy.
- Seeking new income opportunities and/or reducing costs.
- Improving service delivery and the customer experience.
Its key purpose is to support officers to maximise the chances of success for their commercial waste services.
The tool kit supports the following:
- What success looks like for your authority.
- Commercial skills and thinking.
- Providing a strong governance framework to manage risk and change.
- Understanding the financial health of the commercial waste services.
- How to develop and use performance management to provide quality services
- a change delivery plan.
A Commercially Focused Approach
This tool kit has been designed to develop an approach that aligns with your LA’s own requirements and explores commercial skills to deliver a commercial waste service plan that meet’s your needs. A commercially focused approach can include;
- Ensuring all commercial waste services and materials generate a surplus.
- Competitively seeking new commercial waste income.
- Changing the way services are provided in-house to ensure robust service delivery and protect the LA’s reputation.
- Changing the delivery model to outsource the statutory duty or bring services back in house.
The Toolkit Journey
The toolkit breaks down the journey into five areas.