Consistency in household and business recycling in England
Applies to England
Read the full outcome
Detail of outcome
The government response sets out our next steps. We will take forward the relevant policy decisions in secondary legislation in due course.
We are consulting relevant parties on proposed exemptions and statutory guidance. We have also launched a public consultation on additional policies related to simpler recycling.
Feedback received
Detail of feedback received
We received 896 responses to this consultation.
Original consultation
Consultation description
We want to know what you think of our plans to increase the consistency in materials collected for recycling from households, businesses and other organisations in England. Increasing consistency in recycling will reduce confusion in the materials that can be collected for recycling at kerbside. This will help to make sure that less waste goes to landfill and more is recycled.
We want to know what you think about:
- materials to be collected as part of the dry recyclable waste streams
- provisions for food and garden waste collections
- possible exemptions from the requirements set out in the consultation
- topics to be included in statutory guidance for local authorities
- transition timelines for local authorities and businesses
Updates to this page
Published 7 May 2021Last updated 21 November 2023 + show all updates
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Further to the update of 25 October 2023, no further errors were found within the ‘Summary of consultation responses’ report. The Executive Summary has now been permanently redacted from the report and a new cover page, which explains this decision, has been added to the report. See the details of the 25 October 2023 update for more information on what has been redacted from the report. All details within the main body of the ‘Summary of consultation responses’ report remain accurate and valid, as do all statistics referring to stakeholder responses in the official government consultation response.
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We have uploaded a new version of the Summary of consultation responses report (PDF). An earlier version of this report incorrectly stated in the executive summary that, ‘two thirds of respondents (65%) disagree with the proposal to provide caddy liners and one quarter (24%) express support’. It was also incorrectly stated that, ‘three quarters of respondents disagree that anaerobic digestion plants treating food waste should be required to include a composting phase’. The Executive Summary has been temporarily redacted while we assess it for further potential errors. The main body of the report remains accurate and valid, as do all statistics referring to stakeholder responses in the official government consultation response. Additional details of stakeholder responses to question 30 of the Simpler Recycling (previously ‘Recycling Consistency’) 2021 consultation and an appendix have been added to this version of the Summary of consultation responses report. These sections were missing from the version uploaded to GOV.UK on 21 October 2023.
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We've added the government response to the consultation. We've also added a summary of consultation responses report.
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Added detail of feedback received.
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First published.