Using contractors to recycle waste

Most businesses will use their local council or a contractor to recycle their business waste. Whoever you use, you will need to make sure they are licensed to transport and recycle your waste.

There are three main ways for you to recycle your waste:

• local council recycling collections
• local community recycling organisations
• commercial recycling contractors.

Your local council will be licensed to transport and recycle your waste.

You can carry waste produced by your own business without having to register with or notify your environmental regulator, unless you produce construction or demolition waste. This means that you and your employees can move waste around your site and take it to appropriately licensed disposal or recovery sites.

If you transport waste that other people have produced, or your own construction or demolition waste, you must register as a waste carrier with your environmental regulator.

You must check that whoever collects your waste for recycling is registered as a waste carrier with their environmental regulator.

Local councils and certain voluntary or non-profit organisations are exempt from registering as waste carriers, but they must still register a transfer exemption with their regulator.

Every time waste materials leave your site for recycling, you must complete waste transfer notes (WTNs), signed by you and whoever takes the waste materials. You must keep your WTNs for at least two years from the date of issue.

WTNs can help you prove that you have recycled the materials correctly.

Every time materials classified as hazardous/special waste leave your site for recycling, you must complete consignment notes, signed by you and whoever takes the materials. You must keep consignment notes for at least three years from the date of issue.

Consignment notes can help you prove that you have followed the laws on recycling hazardous/special waste correctly.

You must make sure that whoever recycles your waste holds the correct documentation. They will either need:

• an environmental permit (England and Wales)
• a waste management licence (Northern Ireland or Scotland)
• to have registered an exemption with their environmental regulator.

If your business is in the recycling and reprocessing industry and is involved with collecting, treating or reprocessing waste materials, read our guidance for recycling and reprocessing businesses.

In this guideline: