Commercial waste collections

Simpler Recycling - changes to commercial waste collections

From 31 March 2025 the law is changing regarding your commercial waste collection.

This new legislation, known as ‘Simpler Recycling’ enacted by the Separation of Waste (England) Regulations 2024, aims to standardise and increase recycling.

From 31 March 2025 businesses who employ 10 or more staff (or full time equivalent) must separate their waste into 4 different containers:

plastic, metal and glass
paper and card
food waste
refuse (non-recyclables)

See updated guidance from GOV.UK for waste collectors and workplaces on separating dry recyclables, food waste and black bin waste.

Micro-businesses (those employing less than 10 staff, or full-time equivalent) have been provided with more time to comply with the legislation and will need to separate their waste from March 2027.

We're contacting customers affected direct by email and post. If you’d like to keep up-to-date on the changes because your business is affected, you can subscribe to get email updates by emailing: cwsr@york.gov.uk.

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Our offerings include:

Monday to Saturday general waste collections
Monday to Friday recycling collections
evening collections
pre-paid trade waste bags collections in the city centre (if you're unable to accommodate bins)

Put your waste out for collection at 4.00pm on your collection day, in line with your duty of care to dispose of your trade waste properly.

Applying for a commercial waste collection

Contact our Commercial Waste team by email: commwaste@york.gov.uk to arrange a collection.

We provide a commercial "dry waste" collection service to most businesses in York, which we can adjust to meet the demands of the waste produced by your business.

We'll send you a form outlining our current charges and bin sizes, requesting details such as:

your business information
the type(s) of waste you need us to collect
the quantity of waste you produce
the type(s) of container you will use for waste disposal
how often you require collections

Occasionally, we may need to visit your premises beforehand to ensure the service is correct for your needs and meets our Health and Safety guidelines.

Once your request is approved, we'll provide you with your commercial waste agreement and waste transfer note/duty of care documentation. We'll request that you sign and return these documents to us before delivering your bins.

Commercial waste collection costs

Pre-paid commercial waste bags

For businesses unable to accommodate bins, we offer pre-paid commercial waste bags, delivered directly to your business within 5 working days of your order.

Bags can be ordered by:

leaving a message on our 24-hours bag order line on telephone: 01904 553283
email: commwaste@york.gov.uk

For initial bag orders, email: commwaste@york.gov.uk.

Please note: a minimum order is 50 bags and bags are delivered in batch of 25, for example, 50, 75, 100.

Bag pricing:

£2.22 per bag (commercial rate); 50 bags = £111.00
£1.78 per bag (Schedule 2 Rate); 50 bags = £89.00

Please note: An additional annual charge of £40.00 applies for issuing your waste transfer note:

payable upon receipt of your first invoice (if we collect your waste in trade bags)
payable with quarterly invoices in equal instalments (if we collect your waste in bins)