FOI release

Commercial Waste Recycling & Contamination

Case reference FOI2026/00885

Received 28 April 2026

Published 28 May 2026

Request

I am writing to request information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 regarding commercial waste collection, bin standardisation, and contamination rates within your council.

Please provide the following data, if held, for the following calendar years:
• 1st April 2024 - 31st March 2025
• 1st April 2025 – 31st March 2026

1. The current standard bin colours used by the council for commercial and business waste collections for general waste, dry mixed recycling, paper and cardboard, glass, food waste.

2. The total tonnage of commercial/business recycling collected.

3. The total tonnage of commercial/business recycling that was rejected or sent to landfill/EfW (Energy from Waste) due to contamination.

4. The number of commercial/business waste collections refused (i.e. the bin was not emptied) by the collection crew due to bin contamination.

5. The number of formal warnings, fines, or Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs) issued to businesses for failing to correctly separate waste or for bin contamination.

Response

Please find the answers to your queries below:

General waste – black.

Recycling (including dry mixed recycling, paper and cardboard, glass) – green.

Food waste – silver and outdoor food caddy.

2. The total tonnage of commercial/business recycling collected.

In response to your recent request for information I can confirm that data on Local Authority collected waste management figures dating back to 2005 is publicly available information which can be found via the following website –

https://www.data.gov.uk/dataset/0e0c12d8-24f6-461f-b4bc-f6d6a5bf2de5/waste-data-flow

In particular, the tables dating from 2016, which start with “Q100”, provide information regarding the type of materials being processed for disposal and the amounts in tonnes, as well as information about how the materials were processed (e.g. recycling / exported / composting / incineration with energy recovery etc).

The second set of tables for each reporting year (starting “Waste collection data”) provide a breakdown of the specific types and amounts of waste collected, as well as whether the waste was collected from kerbside schemes / commercial, industrial or non household sources / street cleaning etc. This table also provides data on the number of household recycling sacks and wheelie bins offered to households in each year, as well information about incidents of fly tipping and abandoned vehicles.

As such, the information you require can be found from publicly available sources and consequentially under Section 21 of the Act, we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible.

Please note that the data for 2025/26 has not yet been collated and is it not reasonably practicable to produce the information for the latest financial year yet at the current time.

3. The total tonnage of commercial/business recycling that was rejected or sent to landfill/EfW (Energy from Waste) due to contamination.

We do not hold information on the tonnage rejected due to contamination. However, information on the tonnage sent to landfill or for incineration can be found in the data available via the link shared in question 2 above.

4. The number of commercial/business waste collections refused (i.e. the bin was not emptied) by the collection crew due to bin contamination.

Please note that we do not keep a record of the specific reason for a bin collection to be refused. As such, we do not hold this information.

5. The number of formal warnings, fines, or Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs) issued to businesses for failing to correctly separate waste or for bin contamination.

Zero.

Please note that information regarding Fixed Penalty Noticed is publicly available via the following website:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fly-tipping-statistics-for-england#fly-tipping-enforcement-and-prosecution

Please see the table titled ‘flytipping incidents and actions taken (reported by LAs in England) 2012-13 to 2024-25’. In particular, please ensure that you are viewing the tab titled ‘LA_actions’– information relating to Guildford Borough Council can be found at row 4,070 and you will note that the different columns reference fixed penalty notices issued for a variety of reasons.

Yours sincerely,

FOI Team

Guildford Borough Council

Documents

There are no documents for this release.

This is Guildford Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.

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