Business waste & recycling

A waste audit is the most important first step in setting up a waste management plan for your business.

Try to break your assessment down into more manageable sections, including:

• the quantity of waste that is being created by your business
• the types of waste being produced by your business

Look at whether some of these waste items:

• could be prevented or reduced
• which items could be recycled
• which items could be composted
• which items can be disposed of via the rubbish bins
• which items need to be disposed of more carefully and are potentially hazardous
• which items have been affected by recent regulations and can no longer be legally disposed of via the general rubbish route

Planning a waste audit for your business

• Click here to view the review your waste flier.
• Click here to view the resource efficiency guide from WRAP.
• Link to Recycle-More: recycling information for businesses.

Charges will apply:

• Ask about a kerbside garden waste bin from the council for your garden waste on 0345 600 6400 or via a local phone number.
• Hire a skip - try skipandbin.com which has a database of more than 1,000 licensed skip hire companies from across the UK and a frequently asked questions page.
• Use one of the waste bag services available at DIY stores.
• Try the Waste Aware North East online waste directory for businesses.

Contact a private waste disposal company and arrange to deliver or collect waste:

• SUEZ Recycling and Recovery UK Ltd- 0191 258 8260- please choose the “sales” option
• Biffa UK Ltd Tel: 0179 454 7400
• JBT Waste Services Tel: 01670 827820 

Visit the Environment Agency pages for information on waste regulations, waste carriers' licences, duty of care and further environmental information for businesses.

Discarded electrical items from businesses, such as fridges, TVs, and printers are subject to the WEEE regulations.

Under the regulations, it’s the responsibility of the producer of the equipment or the current waste holder to arrange for the collection and disposal of the waste – not the council.

Further information is available from the Environment Agency.

• Click here for information about our commercial waste collection service for holiday accommodation.

If you have a recycling collection from Northumberland County Council, download and print out the recycling poster for your guests at your holiday accommodation.

Fees are charged to collect garden waste. Call 0345 600 6400 or use one of our local numbers to find out more.

You cannot use household waste recovery centres to dispose of the garden waste produced by your business, nor are you allowed to apply for and use permits to access those sites.

If you would like more advice about disposing of your garden waste from your business or business property, please contact us on one of the phone numbers above.

If you have a gardening business the cheapest option for you would be for your customers to use the garden waste collection scheme and or compost garden waste in their own garden.

Resources

• Find information from Waste Aware North East here.
• Visit Waste Resources Action Programme (WRAP) - which includes information for the hospitality and food service, construction, retail, agriculture and small to medium enterprises.
• Click here to view the resource efficiency booklet from WRAP.
• Start recycling at work in four easy steps by finding out how from Recycle Now.
• Link to Recycle-More - recycling information for businesses.

Posters

• Look at the what can we recycle poster (for businesses with a council recycling collection).
• Recycling posters can be found on our school recycling webpage.
• Composting promotional posters can be found on our home composting webpage.
• Look at the promoting battery recycling poster here.

If you have any feedback or suggestions to improve this page, email Lorna.Tingey@northumberland.gov.uk

Disclaimer

The information provided on this page, along with links to websites for further reading are provided so that businesses can make their own informed decisions on the best recycling/reuse options from their place of work.

Northumberland County Council does not necessarily support the views/ideas of the companies or websites listed. The links and contacts are purely provided for your information and consideration. 

• Click here to request a quotation or information about the trade waste collection service.
• Click here to view the commercial waste services leaflet

If you are a trade waste customer and need to change your details, phone 0345 600 6400 or one of our local phone numbers.

If you’re a charity or not-for-profit group delivering benefits to the local community, you could qualify for free waste collections providing you generate no more waste than a domestic property – that’s 240 litres of general waste and 240 litres of recycling.
 

Discarded electrical items from businesses such as fridges, TVs and printers are subject to the WEEE regulations and aren’t collected by the council.

The producer of the equipment or the current waste holder should arrange disposal of the waste. To find out more, visit the Environment Agency site.

Councils have a duty to arrange for the collection of household waste and may arrange to collect commercial and industrial waste. The Controlled Waste Regulations 2012 (CWR) identify the types of waste classified as household, commercial and industrial. The regulations also identify whether the council may charge collection fees, or collection and disposal fees, for certain types of household and commercial waste.

The table below summarises how the regulations require waste to be charged. Click here for the full classification of waste types listed in the CWR 2012.

Collection and disposal charges

Description of household waste	Collection charge	Disposal charge
A place of worship	No	No
A caravan or mobile home belonging to gypsies and travellers	No	No
Waste from premises wholly or mainly used for public meetings	Yes	No
Waste from a charity shop selling donated goods originating from domestic property	Yes	Yes (only non-domestic waste)
Waste from premises occupied by a community interest company, charity, or not for profit body, which collects goods for reuse or waste to prepare for reuse from domestic property	Yes	Yes (only non-domestic waste)
Waste from a residential home	Yes	Yes
Waste from premises forming part of a university, school or other educational establishment	Yes	Yes (unless the local authority collected the waste prior to 6th April 2012)
Waste forming part of a hospital or nursing home except for waste from a residential hostel (see above)	Yes	Yes
Waste from a penal institution	Yes	Yes
Description of commercial waste	Collection charge	Disposal charge
Self-catering accommodation, campsites and caravan parks (either for self-catering accommodation or not allowed to be used throughout the year)	Yes	Yes (unless eligible for free disposal prior to 6th April 2012 & eligible for Small Business Rate Relief)
Premises occupied by a charity and wholly or mainly used for charitable purposes	Yes (unless from a place of worship or used for public meetings which is treated as household waste)	Yes (unless from a place of worship or used for public meetings which is treated as household waste)
Premises occupied by a club, society etc. whose activities are conducted for the benefit of its members	Yes	Yes

The fees we charge are generally less than private waste management companies. Charges vary depending on your circumstances, like the size and number of your bins, frequency of collection, type of waste and whether there’s a disposal and a collection fee.

Charges will apply for all of these:

• Ask about a kerbside garden waste bin by phoning 0345 600 6400 or using one of our local phone numbers.
• Hire a skip - please try skipandbin.com, which has a database of more than 1,000 licensed skip hire companies from across the UK.
• Use one of the waste bag services available at DIY stores.

Contact a private waste disposal company and arrange to take your waste over a weighbridge or arrange a waste collection.

• SUEZ Recycling and Recovery UK Ltd- 0191 258 8260- please choose the “sales” option
• Biffa UK Ltd - tel: 0191 454 7400
• JBT Waste Services - tel: 01670 827 820 

The legal definition of agricultural waste is ‘waste from premises used for agriculture’ within the meaning of the Agriculture Act 1947.

The Agriculture Act 1947 defines agriculture as including:

• horticulture
• fruit growing
• seed growing
• dairy farming
• livestock breeding and keeping
• the use of land as grazing land
• meadow land
• osier land
• market gardens and nursery grounds
• the use of land for woodlands where that use is ancillary to the farming of the land for other agricultural purposes, and ‘agriculture’ shall be constructed accordingly

The new regulations cover what was previously described as farm waste. This includes all substances or objects from premises used for agriculture, and which are discarded by the holder.

Farmers can follow one or more of the suggestions below when considering how to dispose of their agricultural waste:

• Pending collection, store your waste on the site where it’s produced for up to 12 months. You do not have to inform the Environment Agency of this, but after the 12-month period you will have to recover or dispose of your waste using one of the other options below.
• Take the waste yourself to an appropriately licensed site for recovery or disposal off-farm. You will have to register as a waste carrier to transport your own waste (NB. the county council's network of household waste recovery centres are not licensed for agricultural waste).
• Transfer your waste to someone else for recovery or disposal off-farm at an appropriately licensed site. Waste management companies can visit your farm to carry your waste but they must be registered with the Environment Agency.
• Register a license exemption with the Environment Agency to recover or dispose of your waste on-farm.

Apply to the Environment Agency for a waste management license or a landfill permit to recover or dispose of your waste on-farm.

• the Environment Agency
• Defra
• GOV.UK website:
  • Recycling and waste management A-Z for links on finding a registered waste carrier, registering as a waste carrier and much more.
  • The Environment Agency maintains a public register, which allows members of the public and businesses to identify registered waste carriers.
  • A-Z on farming queries.

If you have any further queries on agricultural waste then contact DEFRA at defra.helpline@defra.gsi.gov.uk or the Environment Agency at enquiries@environment-agency.gov.uk.

There are strict controls on the disposal, recovery and movement of hazardous waste due to its potential to harm human health or the environment.

Please click here to find out more about hazardous waste from the Environment Agency.