Draft Separation of Waste (England) Regulations 2025
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mary Creagh)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Separation of Waste (England) Regulations 2025.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Madam Chair. These regulations, laid in draft before the House on 3 December 2024, confirm the final policy positions for simpler recycling in England. For too long, households in England have been presented with a muddled and confusing patchwork of approaches to bin collections. These reforms will ensure that across England people will be able to recycle the same materials, whether at home, work or school, putting an end to the confusion over what can and cannot be recycled in different parts of the country—something that we all, as Members of Parliament, experience on a weekly basis.
We are all responsible for addressing our country’s waste problem. We know that citizens want to play their part and recycle as much as possible, but they are frustrated by limited and confusing recycling services. Through these reforms, we are empowering citizens to turn their good intentions into simple, effective actions.
Simpler recycling is one of the three core pillars of the Government’s ambitious collection and packaging reforms, alongside the forthcoming deposit return scheme and the extended producer responsibility scheme for packaging. Together, we estimate that the collection and packaging reforms will support 21,000 jobs in our nations and regions and stimulate more than £10 billion of investment in recycling capability over the next decade. The reforms are also estimated to deliver carbon savings of more than 46 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2035, with a value of more than £10 billion in carbon benefits.
Since 2015, household recycling rates in England have plateaued at around 44% or 45%, and they actually decreased to 43% in 2022. We urgently need to take steps to improve that recycling performance. This statutory instrument on simpler recycling will end the postcode lottery of bin collections in England by ensuring all households and workplaces can recycle the same core waste streams: plastic, metal and glass, paper and card, and food waste with garden waste for households upon request.
Simpler recycling will improve services for householders, by introducing weekly food collections for all households in England and kerbside plastic film collections. That will constitute a significant contribution towards meeting our ambition to recycle 65% of municipal waste by 2035 and our target of reducing residual waste generated per capita by 50% by 2042 compared with 2019 levels. These changes are a critical first step towards meeting the commitment in our manifesto to transition to a resource-resilient, productive circular economy, which delivers long-term, sustainable, resilient growth.
Let me draw Member’s attention to the exemptions introduced by this instrument. The legislation to implement the core legislative requirements of simpler recycling was introduced by the previous Government through the Environment Act 2021. This legislation has already come into force, which in practice means that simpler recycling will automatically into effect in March 2025 for workplaces and March 2026 for households.
Sections 45A, 45AZA and 45AZB of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, as amended by the Environment Act 2021, require that the six recyclable waste schemes—plastic, glass, metal, paper and card, food waste and garden waste—are collected separately alongside residual waste. The legislation states that local authorities and other waste collectors can make use of an exemption to collect these recyclable materials together if it is not technically or economically practicable to collect them separately, or if there is no significant environmental benefit to doing so. If they use an exception, however, the waste collectors must produce a written assessment to record the justification.
Laid in draft before the House on 3 December, the draft instrument sets sensible exemptions from those conditions, allowing any combination of the recyclable waste streams—metal, glass and plastic—to be collected together at all times. The exemption applies to collections from households and from workplaces. It also allows food waste and garden waste to be collected together from households at all times. Waste collectors will not have to justify co-collection of any of those materials as they would have to under the primary legislation. We took that decision because the Secretary of State determined, based on the evidence, that co-collection of those materials does not affect the potential for them to be recycled.
We will not include paper and card in the exemption; they must, by default, be collected separately from the other dry recyclable waste streams. This applies to collections from households and from workplaces. That is because paper and card are particularly vulnerable to cross-contamination from food and liquid commonly found on other recycling materials, which could significantly reduce the potential for the collected material to be recycled.
None the less, we want to provide flexibility for local councils and other waste collectors, so where waste collectors consider that it is not technically or economically practicable to collect paper and card separately, or where there is no significant environmental benefit from doing so, they may collect paper and card together with other dry recycling, if they provide a written assessment to document the justifications.
Waste collectors will decide where an exception applies. There is no need to request permission from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs or the Environment Agency to co-collect paper and card where an exception applies. We have published guidance for local councils and other waste collectors to support their decision making on the co-collection of paper and card with other dry recyclable materials where appropriate. All exemptions will be automatic; local councils and other waste collectors will not need to apply for them. They will need only to produce a written assessment to co-collect paper and card with other recyclable materials. Under the primary legislation, without this instrument, they would have had to produce written assessments to co-collect any combination of recyclable materials together.
The exemptions mean that the new default requirement for most households will be four containers: for food waste, mixed with garden waste if appropriate; for paper and card; for all other dry recyclable materials—plastic, metal and glass—and for non-recyclable waste. As we are maintaining flexibility, councils and other waste collectors may choose to separate materials further if that suits local need. This is a sensible, straightforward, common-sense approach to the collection of recycling for every household and workplace in England.
When the draft instrument is implemented, microfirms—workplaces with fewer than 10 full-time equivalent employees—will not need to arrange recycling of the core recyclable waste streams, as required by the Environmental Protection Act 1990, until 31 March 2027. We recognise that microfirms, of which there are estimated to be 1.8 million in England, may face more challenges introducing the changes, so the phasing-in period gives them more time to prepare.
These are substantial reforms and we will support local councils and workplaces to deliver the new requirements in the most cost-efficient way. Right now, we are focused on raising awareness and providing guidance for councils and workplaces on how to deliver efficient services, including through webinars and toolkits. For local councils, we are working to distribute funding for food waste collections as soon as possible. We have already provided £258 million of capital funding, and we will also provide resource and ongoing funding. We will also continue to engage with stakeholders to understand the challenges they face and to ensure the successful delivery of simpler recycling.
The need for simpler recycling has never been clearer. By simplifying what households and workplaces across England can recycle, these long-awaited, much anticipated reforms will jump-start England’s faltering recycling rate, maximising environmental benefits, ensuring we keep our precious resources in use for longer and unleashing investment and economic opportunities. I commend the draft instrument to the Committee.
Dr Neil Hudson (Epping Forest) (Con)
It is a great privilege to serve under your chairship, Mrs Furniss, and to be sitting opposite the Minister again, as I have done on various issues. I thank her for bringing these important regulations to the Committee.
The principle of improving our recycling is one that I wholeheartedly support. I believe the Conservatives have a strong track record in this area; I thank the Minister for graciously acknowledging the importance of our landmark Environment Act 2021. Between 2010 and 2022, we reduced the amount of waste going to landfill by about 47% and cut the amount of biodegradable waste going to landfill by 46%. We also introduced a simpler recycling collection system to make it easier to recycle, saving people time and stopping confusion, to boost recycling rates. Additionally, our introduction of the single-use plastic bag charge in 2015 led to a remarkable drop in plastic bag usage, significantly reducing plastic waste.
I am pleased to see that the Labour Government have drawn on our previous consultations to shape this statutory instrument. In 2021, the Conservative Government conducted an initial consultation on consistency in household and business recycling, followed by an additional targeted consultation in 2023 that focused on exemptions to allow co-collection of recyclable waste streams. The process engaged English waste collection and disposal authorities, the Environment Agency and key stakeholders across the waste sector.
These regulations, set to take effect at the end of March this year, introduce mandatory waste separation for businesses and non-domestic premises. Businesses with fewer than 10 employees—microbusinesses—have been given an extended timeline until March 2027 to comply. Under the regulations, businesses will need to separate their waste into three key streams: dry recyclables such as glass, plastic, metal, paper and card, food waste and residual waste.
Recycling is important, and we must continually look at ways to increase it and make it easier for councils to carry out their waste management roles. However, I do have a couple of clarification questions for the Minister that I hope she may be able to address. First, can the Minister confirm what specific campaigns or initiatives will be launched to ensure that businesses and non-domestic premises are fully aware of the changes coming down the line? Secondly, what measures are being put in place and what reassurances are being put out there to help businesses—particularly small and microbusinesses—to comply with the regulations without facing financial burdens?
This is an important issue; I look forward to seeing how these regulations and this important recycling agenda progress in future.
Mary Creagh
I thank the shadow Minister for his kind comments. It is fair to say that there has been cross-party unity on two of these three reforms; I was very surprised to see that his colleague, the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith)—not this shadow Minister, who had the very good sense not to be present in that debate—chose to divide the House on the introduction of the deposit return scheme. These regulations were in-flight regulations; they have taken such a long time from when they were first promised back in 2018, and my strong feeling is that we should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We could all create the perfect recycling system, but we have to deal with the world as it is, not as we would like it to be.
I agree with the shadow Minister that the single-use carrier bag charge was one of the Conservatives’ landmark reforms. By introducing a charge—not a benefit; people respond better psychologically to a charge than to a benefit—that measure has driven a huge behaviour change, which means we rarely see plastic bags littered. Of course, all these reforms are about tackling the avalanche of litter that is plaguing our rivers, lakes and seas, turning up on our beaches and killing our wildlife. All the evidence says that if we have unclear and inconsistent collections, people do not know what to do with their waste and they end up just putting it outside. That is how we end up with the fly-tipping epidemic that we are trying to tackle.
The shadow Minister asked me about campaigns. First, I think it is fair to say that these regulations have been a long time in the making, so local authorities certainly know that they are coming. My officials and I hosted a roundtable with local authorities last week in the Department at which the Merseyside waste authority, the Greater Manchester waste authority and several of the London waste authorities were present. Wiltshire county council was also present, which I know has been pressing hard on the recycling for plastic films that this instrument introduces. We had district councils, county councils and the big metropolitan councils in there, so I think there is awareness.
Given the timing of the election and recess, as well as parliamentary time, there is work to be done on the readiness of businesses and, as I have said, we are working with the Environment Agency. Obviously, some stakeholders may find the introduction of the reforms more challenging than others. We will work with them to support them in overcoming any difficulties that they might face in complying within the legislative timeframes. Of course, waste collectors have every incentive to tell businesses that these changes are coming because new collections, and therefore new business opportunities for the waste collection and recycling industry, flow from these reforms.
For workplaces, the Environment Agency will be the regulator, and if there is non-compliance, it will issue a notice. That could be against the workplace, as the producer of the waste that is non-compliant with the arrangements made by its waste collector, or against the waste collector that is not providing a compliant service. Obviously, the agency’s enforcement and sanctions policy requires it to act proportionately and to balance the risk posed, the seriousness and the impact of potential breaches when considering its response, while considering all individual facts and circumstances of a potential breach.
The Environment Agency, my officials and I are committed to supporting businesses—both waste producers and collectors—in understanding their duties under these regulations. The Environment Agency will deliver a range of engagement activities, guidance and resources up to and, crucially, beyond the commencement of the legislation; it would be naive to think that we can wave a magic wand and suddenly all this happens on 1 April, so we have to treat this first year as a gradual change. We will be working on that, and we have worked with waste authorities; I hope that answers the shadow Minister’s questions.
Question put and agreed to.