Your waste and the law

This is to improve the quality and quantity of commercial recyclable waste that is collected and separated across Wales.

Duty of care

If you produce, import, carry, keep, treat or dispose of waste you have legal responsibilities for this waste. This is known as your duty of care.

It is important that you understand the Duty of Care and the new law to ensure you are fulfilling your legal obligations. Find out more about the waste duty of care for organisations on the Natural Resources Wales website.

Workplace Recycling Regulations

You are responsible for all the waste on the premises you are occupying. These include waste produced by your staff, visitors and contractors or vendors working on the premises. All workplaces must separate these recyclable materials from their general waste: 

• food waste produced by premises producing more than 5kg of food waste a week
• paper and card
• cardboard
• glass
• metal
• plastic
• cartons and other similar packaging (referred to hereafter collectively as 'cartons')
• unsold small electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE)
• unsold textiles

How you can comply with your duty of care and the Workplace Recycling Regulations

The first thing you should do is to review all the waste you produce. You should check what services we provide on the Non-recyclable waste collections for businesses and Recycling collections for businesses pages. You should review the containers you collect the waste in and speak to the Commercial Waste Service to discuss what service you need. Once your new contract is in place you should:

• Read the full terms and conditions of your contract. Our model Commercial waste and recycling contract terms and conditions are available on our website but you should also check for any specifics in your own contract.
• Put all waste/ recycling in the right container. Failure to do so may result in the waste/recycling being uncollected and you could face extra charges for collection or face a fine.
• Make sure your bin/s are locked.
• Do not overfill your bin or leave any extra waste next to or on top of your bin. If you do, you are putting out waste that you have not paid for and it will not be collected.
• Do not leave extra waste, including cardboard on the street outside of collection day and time. This will be classed as flytipping and you could receive a fine.
• Don't put broken glass or sharp objects in the bags.
• If we miss a collection or there is a problem let us know as soon as possible so we can make arrangements to collect it.
• Pay your invoice to avoid your collections being put on stop.

If you are a customer of our Commercial Waste Service and would like more information on the new legislation please contact the Commercial Team. The latest information and guidance from Welsh Government can be found on the Separated waste collections for workplaces page on their website.