Other Commercial Building Services
Commercial Waste Collection
Since March 2025, most businesses in England have been legally required to separate their waste before collection. Get it wrong and you are exposed to Environment Agency enforcement, and you remain responsible for your waste even after someone else takes it away.
Robinsons Facilities Services arranges commercial waste collection for businesses across Yorkshire and the Humber, using licensed waste carriers. We set up the right bins and collection frequency for what you actually produce, and make sure the paperwork that proves compliance comes back to you.
- 240L from £40+VAT/month
- 660L from £70+VAT/month
- 1100L from £120+VAT/month
- Hazardous waste from £250+VAT per collection
Get a quote for waste collection →
Prefer to speak to someone? Call us on 01423 226578 →
Under Simpler Recycling, in force since 31 March 2025, businesses in England with 10 or more full-time equivalent employees must separate dry recyclables, paper and card, food waste, and general waste before collection. Micro-firms have until 31 March 2027. Waste must be collected by a licensed carrier, with a waste transfer note kept as evidence.
Your legal obligations
Two separate duties apply, and most businesses are aware of one but not the other.
Duty of care
Under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, you are responsible for your waste from the moment it is produced until it is properly disposed of, including after a contractor has collected it. If your waste is fly-tipped or mishandled down the chain, the liability can come back to you. That is why the carrier you use, and the paperwork they give you, matters.
In practice you need to know what waste you produce and how much, store it so it cannot leak or escape, use a licensed waste carrier, and keep a waste transfer note for every collection as your evidence.
Simpler Recycling
The bigger change is Simpler Recycling, which came into force on 31 March 2025 through the Separation of Waste (England) Regulations 2024. Businesses, charities, and public sector organisations in England with 10 or more full-time equivalent employees must now separate their waste into distinct streams before it is collected:
- Dry recyclables: glass, metal, and plastic
- Paper and card
- Food waste
- General waste that cannot be recycled
This covers waste produced by employees, customers, and visitors, so if you provide bins in public areas, that waste needs separating too. Micro-firms with fewer than 10 full-time equivalent employees have until 31 March 2027. The Environment Agency enforces the rules and has been charging for regulatory work on non-compliant sites since February 2026.
Types of commercial waste we collect
We arrange collections for the full range of commercial waste streams, each with its own handling and disposal requirements:
- Food waste: now a mandatory separate stream, sent to anaerobic digestion or composting rather than landfill
- Paper and cardboard: one of the highest-volume streams in most offices and easily recycled
- Dry mixed recycling: plastics, metals, and glass, collected together or separately depending on your setup
- General waste: what remains once the recyclable streams are removed
- Hazardous waste: chemicals, oils, batteries, and similar, requiring consignment notes and specialist disposal
- Clinical waste: sharps, dressings, and similar from healthcare and care settings
- Confidential waste: secure destruction of documents and data, with a certificate of destruction
Bin sizes and collection frequency
Getting the bin size and collection frequency right is the single biggest lever on what you pay. Too small or too infrequent and you get overflow and missed collections; too large and you are paying for air.
- 240 litre: roughly 3 to 4 refuse sacks. Suits small offices, shops, and salons.
- 660 litre: roughly 10 refuse sacks. Suits busier retail, small hospitality, and medium offices.
- 1100 litre: roughly 15 to 16 refuse sacks. Suits pubs, restaurants, larger offices, and light industrial units.
Collections are typically weekly, but fortnightly or multiple times a week are both available depending on what you produce. We will look at your actual volumes rather than guessing, and adjust if the pattern changes.
Pricing
Waste collection is priced on bin size and collection frequency, so the figures below are for weekly collection of a single bin. Multiple streams, higher frequencies, and multi-site arrangements are quoted together.
240 litre bin: from £40+VAT per month
Weekly collection. Suits small offices, retail units, and salons.
660 litre bin: from £70+VAT per month
Weekly collection. Suits busier retail, small hospitality, and medium offices.
1100 litre bin: from £120+VAT per month
Weekly collection. Suits pubs, restaurants, larger offices, and light industrial units.
Hazardous waste: from £250+VAT per collection
Chemicals, oils, batteries, and similar. Includes consignment documentation and specialist disposal. Priced per collection rather than monthly, since volumes vary.
Landfill tax is charged per tonne on waste sent to landfill and has been rising year on year. This is why separating recyclable streams properly usually reduces what you pay overall, not just what you owe legally.
How we support you
We arrange your collections through licensed waste carriers, set up the bin sizes and frequencies to match what you produce, and make sure your waste transfer notes come back to you so your duty of care evidence is in order.
If your waste pattern changes, we adjust the arrangement rather than leaving you on a contract that no longer fits.
For businesses that already use us for other services, waste collection sits alongside the rest of your building maintenance under a single PPM and compliance contract, with one point of contact and one set of paperwork.
For one-off clearances or a single hazardous collection, we quote through quoted works with the price confirmed before we attend.
Robinsons Facilities Services is SafeContractor approved and holds UKAS ISO 9001 certification. We arrange waste collection for offices, retail, hospitality, care homes, schools, and industrial units across Yorkshire, including Huddersfield, Bradford, Leeds, and York.
Get a quote for waste collection →
Prefer to speak to someone? Call us on 01423 226578 →
Commercial Waste Collection FAQs
Commercial waste collection is priced by bin size and collection frequency. With Robinsons Facilities Services, a 240 litre bin on weekly collection starts from £40+VAT per month, a 660 litre bin from £70+VAT per month, and a 1100 litre bin from £120+VAT per month. Hazardous waste collections start from £250+VAT per collection. Send us an enquiry or call us on 01423 226578 for a quote based on what your site actually produces.
Yes. Since 31 March 2025, businesses in England with 10 or more full-time equivalent employees must separate dry recyclables, paper and card, food waste, and general waste before collection, under the Simpler Recycling rules. Businesses with fewer than 10 full-time equivalent employees have until 31 March 2027. The Environment Agency enforces these rules.
A waste transfer note is the document that records the transfer of your waste to a carrier. You need one for every collection, and you must keep them as evidence that you have met your duty of care under the Environmental Protection Act 1990. Without them, you have no proof your waste was handled legally, and the liability sits with you.
It depends on volume. As a rough guide, a 240 litre bin holds around 3 to 4 refuse sacks and suits a small office or shop, a 660 litre bin holds around 10 sacks and suits busier retail or hospitality, and a 1100 litre bin holds around 15 sacks and suits pubs, restaurants, and larger premises. We will look at what you actually produce rather than guessing.
Yes. Your duty of care does not end when the bin is emptied. If waste you produced is later fly-tipped or handled illegally, liability can trace back to you. That is why it matters that your collections go through a licensed carrier and that you keep the transfer notes.
Three things usually make the biggest difference: getting the bin size and collection frequency right for what you actually produce rather than what you assumed, separating recyclable streams properly so less goes to landfill where tax is charged per tonne, and reviewing the arrangement when your business changes. We can audit what you are producing and adjust the setup.
Last updated: 29/07/2026
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