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Simpler Recycling 2026 is not a completely new set of rules arriving for every London business this year. Workplaces with 10 or more full-time-equivalent employees should already have complied from 31 March 2025.
What makes 2026 important is that the rules have moved from preparation into everyday operation. The Environment Agency is responsible for regulating workplace compliance, households across England entered the new system in March 2026, and micro-firms now have until 31 March 2027 to make their own arrangements.
For London businesses, the principle is straightforward: recyclable material should not automatically disappear into the same bin as general waste.
The practical questions are more complicated. How many bins are needed? Does a small office need food-waste collection? What happens in a shared building? Who is responsible — the tenant, landlord or waste company? And what should a business do when there is barely enough space outside for one commercial bin?
This guide explains what the rules require and how London workplaces can prepare.
The short version
Simpler Recycling is the Government's system for making waste and recycling collections more consistent across England.
Its purpose is to ensure that the same core materials can be collected for recycling from homes, workplaces, schools, hospitals and other non-domestic premises.
For workplaces, the rules cover waste produced by:
The reforms apply throughout England. London does not have a separate legal deadline, although the way collections are arranged can differ between boroughs and private waste providers.
The definitive requirements are set out in the Government's official Simpler Recycling workplace guidance.
The rollout has several stages, which is one reason the dates are frequently confused.
| Date | What changed? |
|---|---|
| 31 March 2025 | Workplaces with 10 or more full-time-equivalent employees had to comply |
| 3 February 2026 | Environment Agency cost-recovery charging for regulatory work took effect |
| 31 March 2026 | Simpler Recycling requirements came into force for household collections in England, including weekly food-waste collections for most homes unless a transitional arrangement applies |
| 31 March 2027 | Micro-firms with fewer than 10 FTE employees must comply |
| 31 March 2027 | Plastic film packaging and plastic bags join the plastic recycling stream |
The household change is not quite uniform. Where a long-term waste disposal contract makes separate food-waste collection difficult to introduce, a council may operate under an agreed transitional arrangement with a later start date, so residents in some areas will see weekly food-waste collections arrive after March 2026.
None of that resets the business deadline. If a London business has 10 or more FTE employees, its workplace requirements have already been in force since March 2025, whatever stage its borough has reached with household collections.
The rules cover businesses, charities and public-sector organisations producing waste similar in nature and composition to household waste.
Examples include:
This is not a complete list. The rules are deliberately broad because recyclable packaging, paper, food and drinks containers are generated in almost every type of workplace — including temporary ones, as our look at the clean-up after a major festival shows.
In-scope workplaces must separate three principal categories before their waste is collected.
The core dry-recycling materials include:
Typical examples include cardboard boxes, newspapers, envelopes, plastic bottles, rinsed food containers, drinks cans, food tins, empty aerosols, clean foil, glass bottles and rinsed glass jars.
Food waste must be kept separate from both dry recycling and general waste.
It includes:
Residual or general waste is material that cannot be recycled through the business's available collection service.
Separating material correctly matters because recycling that has been heavily contaminated with food, liquids or general rubbish may be rejected and treated as residual waste.
Garden waste is not one of the three core workplace streams, but it is not ignored either.
The Government's workplace guidance states that a business generating garden waste must arrange for it to be recycled or composted where that delivers the best environmental outcome.
For most London offices and shops this will not arise. It is more likely to matter for premises with grounds, such as schools, care homes, hotels, sports venues and managed estates.
Not necessarily.
The Government's general model allows for:
However, the law is concerned with proper separation and collection, not forcing every workplace to buy one particular style or number of bins. The guidance is explicit that a workplace can either use separate bins for each type of waste, or separate the waste before collection.
Plastic, metal and glass can normally be collected together. Paper and card should ordinarily be collected separately because they are easily contaminated by liquids, food and broken glass.
A waste collector may combine paper and card with other dry recyclables where separate collection is not technically or economically practicable or offers no significant environmental benefit. The collector must support that decision with a written co-collection assessment.
A business should follow the collection arrangement agreed with its provider rather than assuming every mixed-recycling service is automatically compliant.
For an in-scope workplace, the official guidance says food waste must be collected even where the business does not serve food or operate a kitchen.
There is no general minimum weight below which an in-scope English workplace can disregard its food waste. The rule applies no matter how little food waste the premises produce.
A small office may still produce:
Employees should not be told to take workplace food waste home as a way around the requirement.
Food bins should be placed wherever food is normally consumed or prepared, such as kitchens, staff rooms, canteens and customer dining areas.
Weekly or fortnightly collection is generally recommended to reduce smells and pests. Government guidance advises against storing food waste for longer than two weeks.
Packaging labelled "compostable" or "biodegradable" cannot be recycled with food waste. The Government's guidance is that it should be treated as non-recyclable waste, or given a dedicated collection.
Caddy liners are treated differently. The guidance confirms that any caddy liners a workplace uses, including compostable liners, can be collected with its food waste. If a collector asks for a particular type of liner, follow that instruction, because the receiving facility determines what its process can handle.
A recycling symbol does not necessarily mean an item belongs in a standard workplace recycling bin.
Materials that commonly require another collection include:
Some of these materials can still be recycled through specialist services. They simply do not belong in the core dry-recycling collection.
Clear signs above each bin help employees and customers understand the difference.
Contamination happens when the wrong material is placed in a recycling container or when otherwise recyclable packaging still contains too much food or liquid.
Common examples include:
A collector may reject a heavily contaminated load or charge more because it must be treated as general waste. Our guide to where rubbish goes after collection explains how loads are sorted at a waste facility, and why contamination is spotted there rather than at the kerbside.
Businesses can reduce contamination by:
The Government says the Environment Agency will take a pragmatic and proportionate approach where contamination is identified during an inspection, but businesses should still demonstrate that they have made reasonable arrangements.
A micro-firm is an organisation with fewer than 10 full-time-equivalent employees.
Micro-firms have until 31 March 2027 to comply. They do not need to register or apply for the temporary exemption.
The threshold is based on the total number of FTE employees across the entire organisation — not the number working at one branch on a particular day.
For example, a company operating three London shops with five employees at each location cannot treat each shop as a separate five-person micro-firm. The organisation employs 15 people across its sites, so its recycling arrangements should already comply.
Part-time employees are counted proportionately, by adding a fraction based on their pro-rated hours. Volunteers, contractors and self-employed workers do not count towards the total.
The wording matters: the exemption is for businesses with fewer than 10 FTE employees, not businesses with "10 employees or fewer."
The deadline is not a reason to wait until the final week.
A small business may need time to:
Preparing early also reveals whether better separation could reduce the amount of expensive general waste the business produces.
The Government's Simpler Recycling policy update confirms the March 2027 micro-firm and plastic-film milestones.
From 31 March 2027, plastic film packaging and plastic bags will need to be collected with plastic recycling. The change applies to businesses and other non-domestic premises as well as to households.
This does not mean every flexible or soft-plastic product can be placed in the same bin. The detailed material type and the collector's acceptance rules still matter.
Businesses should ask their provider:
Dates circulating on commercial waste websites are not always consistent. The date given in current Government policy for Simpler Recycling plastic film collections is 31 March 2027.
Shared premises are one of the most important practical issues for London businesses.
A landlord or facilities-management company may arrange the bins and collection contract, but the individual businesses still need to understand how their waste must be separated.
The Government's guidance is direct about where a compliance notice can land. It will often go to the waste producer — the business itself — but it may also be issued to a landlord or facilities-management company that is presenting waste on behalf of the waste producer. And where a landlord or a managing agent employs the waste company, that company has its own legal obligation to make sure separately collected dry recyclables are actually sent for recycling.
In other words, responsibility may be shared rather than simply transferred, and which party a regulator approaches will depend on who produced the waste, who presented it and who arranged the collection. A business in a shared building should ask for written confirmation of:
Assuming that "the landlord handles it" is not the same as checking that compliant arrangements exist.
Construction sites are included where they generate household-like waste.
That includes:
These materials should not simply be compacted into a mixed construction-waste skip.
Rubble, soil, plasterboard, timber and other building materials have their own handling requirements. Our guide to builders' waste removal in London explains how construction and refurbishment waste should be assessed separately.
Yes. Simpler Recycling does not give businesses a free recycling service.
A workplace can arrange collections through:
The business must check that anyone transporting its waste is properly registered. The Environment Agency's public register of waste carriers, brokers and dealers can be searched free of charge, and our step-by-step guide to checking a waste carrier licence shows how to do it in about a minute.
Our waste-carrier licence and compliance guide explains what London customers should check before allowing somebody to remove waste.
The Environment Agency regulates Simpler Recycling requirements for workplaces and private waste collectors.
A compliance notice may be issued where a business, landlord, facilities-management company or collector is not meeting the requirements. Failing to comply with that notice is an offence and can lead to enforcement action.
Non-compliance can be reported by anyone. The Government's reporting guidance says the evidence may include photographs, details of which materials were incorrectly mixed, the name of the organisation and the address where it was witnessed.
Two limits are worth knowing. The form is not for household waste, and it is not for reporting an organisation with fewer than 10 full-time-equivalent employees for failing to meet requirements that do not yet apply to it. Micro-firms sit outside this particular reporting route until their own deadline arrives on 31 March 2027.
That is a narrow exemption, not a general one. It does not touch a micro-firm's wider waste duty of care, and it does not stop anyone reporting a small business for illegal disposal, fly-tipping or any other breach of waste law.
No, and the distinction is worth getting right.
From 3 February 2026, the Environment Agency introduced a charge of £118 per hour for regulatory work relating to Simpler Recycling. It is a cost-recovery charge for the regulator's time and materials, not an automatic £118 penalty for putting one item in the wrong bin.
It applies to businesses and occupiers of non-domestic premises that are found not to be complying. Importantly, the Environment Agency's charging decision confirms that where an investigation finds a business is compliant, there is no charge for the time spent or for any advice given.
Being looked at is not, in itself, expensive. Being non-compliant is.
No.
Businesses must still:
A business cannot place everything into separate bins and then ignore who collects it or where it goes.
Our Waste Transfer Note guide explains the records used when business waste changes hands.
Simpler Recycling and digital waste tracking are connected, but they do different jobs.
Simpler Recycling determines how recyclable material should be separated and collected.
Digital waste tracking is intended to create a more consistent record of waste movements through the system.
Existing waste-transfer documentation continues during the first stages of digital tracking. Businesses should therefore not assume new digital systems remove their current record-keeping responsibilities.
Our detailed guide to digital waste tracking and Waste Transfer Notes explains the phased rollout.
Use this checklist to review your arrangements:
WRAP's Business of Recycling resources, produced in partnership with Defra, provide sector guidance, downloadable materials and tools businesses can use to review their arrangements.
Simpler Recycling mainly concerns a workplace's regular separation and collection arrangements. A one-off rubbish clearance does not replace the need for ongoing food-waste and recycling services.
However, businesses also generate waste outside their everyday bin collections:
MM Rubbish Clearance provides licensed commercial clearance across London for offices, shops, landlords, property managers and other organisations.
We assess what is being removed, use authorised waste facilities and provide the relevant collection documentation. You can also read about our dedicated office-clearance service and our approach to responsible rubbish clearance.
No. Workplaces with 10 or more FTE employees have been required to comply since 31 March 2025. The household requirements began on 31 March 2026, while micro-firms have until 31 March 2027.
An in-scope workplace must arrange for its food waste to be collected separately, even if it generates only tea bags, coffee grounds or occasional lunch leftovers. The guidance is explicit that this applies even where the workplace does not serve food or have a kitchen.
The English workplace guidance does not provide a general minimum quantity. The requirement applies no matter how little food waste an in-scope workplace produces.
Paper and card should normally be collected separately from plastic, metal and glass. Co-collection may be allowed where separate collection is not technically or economically practicable, or offers no significant environmental benefit, and the collector has completed a written co-collection assessment.
Yes. Part-time hours are added as a fraction of a full-time-equivalent employee. The test is based on total FTE employment across the whole organisation, not at a single site.
No. The temporary exemption applies to businesses with fewer than 10 FTE employees. At exactly 10, the workplace requirements already apply.
The Environment Agency regulates workplace compliance and private waste collectors in England. It can issue a compliance notice, and failing to comply with one is an offence.
No. Existing waste duty-of-care and transfer-document requirements continue alongside it.
No. Businesses can use a local authority commercial service, a private provider or multiple collectors. Any carrier used must hold the appropriate registration, which can be checked free on the Environment Agency's public register.
Simpler Recycling is intended to make recycling consistent, but compliance still depends on individual workplaces making sensible arrangements.
For larger businesses, the deadline has passed. The priority is to review whether the system actually works: are food and dry recycling separated, do staff understand it, and can the organisation demonstrate what happens to its waste?
For micro-firms, March 2027 is the point at which the temporary exemption ends. The best time to inspect contracts, bin space and collection arrangements is before the deadline creates a last-minute rush.
If your organisation is clearing an office, shop, commercial unit or managed property, MM Rubbish Clearance provides licensed rubbish clearance across London.
You can learn more about how MM Rubbish Clearance works or contact us for a commercial-clearance quotation.
