Commercial Waste Collection in London
Commercial waste
Commercial Waste Collection in London
Bags, bins and one-off loads for London businesses, with the paperwork done properly. Tell us the postcode and what the site produces and you get a price from a person, not a call centre.
Get a quote
Send the postcode and a photo of where the waste sits, and a person comes back with a price or a question.
Or email office@capitalrecycle.co.uk · WhatsApp photos to the same number.
180+ London businesses collected for
★4.8 on Trustpilot
98% of what we collect diverted from landfill
Waste Carrier Licence CBDU466346
Commercial waste collection built around London businesses
Commercial Waste London is the commercial-waste service run by Capital Recycle Ltd, a London waste carrier registered with the Environment Agency. We collect from offices, shops, cafés, restaurants, salons, workshops, small industrial units and building sites across London and the WD postcodes. There’s no national account desk in the way. You ring 0207 101 4003 and speak to the people who run the round.
Most of what we do splits into two shapes: a regular schedule for premises that produce waste every week, and a one-off collection for a clear-out or a project. Both come with a waste transfer note, because that’s the document a business is legally required to hold for every load that leaves its premises.
Recurring commercial waste collections
A scheduled collection on a fixed day, weekly or more often, in bags or bins. You know when the van comes, the invoice arrives once a month, and the transfer note covers the whole year’s collections rather than being signed load by load. This suits any premises that produces waste every trading day.
One-off commercial waste removal
A single visit to clear a defined amount: an office move, a shop refit, a tenant leaving, a yard that’s got out of hand. We price it by the load, collect it in a caged tipper, and you get a transfer note for that load. If the one-off turns out to be the start of something regular, it’s easy to switch.
Which commercial waste service fits your premises?
Nobody needs to know the trade names for containers. What matters is how much you produce, how often, and where it can sit until it’s collected.
Commercial bags where bin storage is limited
Pre-paid sacks, collected on a schedule from the front of the premises. This is the right answer for most central London shops, cafés and small offices, because nobody has room for a wheelie bin on Old Compton Street. You buy a stock of bags, put them out on collection day, and only pay for what you use.
Commercial bins for regular higher volumes
Wheelie bins from 240 litres up to 1,100 litres, supplied and emptied on a fixed schedule. Bins make sense once you’re filling more than a handful of sacks a day, or where there’s a yard, a bin store or a service corridor to keep them in. Sizes and frequencies are matched to the premises, not sold off a menu.
Commercial recycling for separated waste streams
Dry mixed recycling (paper, card, plastics, cans) collected separately from general waste, in bags or bins. A separate glass collection for bars and restaurants. Separating streams usually brings the overall cost down, because clean recycling is cheaper to process than mixed rubbish, and it’s what the Simpler Recycling rules now expect of businesses in England.
One-off collections for projects and clear-outs
A wait-and-load collection: the van arrives, you load it, it leaves with the waste. Priced by the load. It replaces a skip where there’s no room for one, no permit, or no appetite for a week of a skip on the pavement outside your shop. For a fuller picture of one-off options, see Capital Recycle’s Wait and Load service.
What counts as commercial waste?
The short version: if a business activity produced it, it’s commercial waste, whatever it looks like. The long version is in our guide to what counts as commercial waste.
Waste produced through business activity
Packaging from deliveries, food waste from a kitchen, offcuts from a workshop, paper from an office, the contents of a customer bin in a café. The material can be identical to household rubbish. The legal duty attached to it is not, and it can’t go in a household bin or to a household tip.
Commercial waste from home-based work
If you run a business from home, the waste that the business produces is commercial waste even though it comes out of a house. A home bakery, a hairdresser with a room set up for clients, an eBay seller with a garage full of packaging. The household bin covers the household; the business waste needs its own arrangement.
Which waste and recycling streams does your business produce?
We collect four streams as standard and arrange a couple of others where a premises needs them.
General waste
Everything that can’t be recycled: contaminated packaging, mixed rubbish, most of what comes out of a customer-facing bin. Collected in bags or bins. This is the stream every business has, and the one most worth reducing, because it’s the most expensive to dispose of.
Dry mixed recycling
Paper, cardboard, plastic bottles and tubs, cans and tins, clean and dry, all in one container. No glass, no food, no soft plastics like film. Collected on the same round as general waste, in its own bag or bin.
Dedicated glass collection
Bottles and jars in their own container. Glass is not part of dry mixed recycling. Mixed in with paper and card it contaminates the load and the whole lot gets downgraded. Bars, restaurants and hotels run a separate glass bin as a matter of course.
Food waste, cardboard and other separate streams
Cardboard on its own, flattened, is straightforward and often worth separating for a shop or a warehouse that gets a lot of it. Food waste from a commercial kitchen is arranged case by case, depending on what the kitchen produces and how much. Sanitary and clinical waste sit outside our carrier registration, so for those we refer you to one of our partners.
How commercial waste collection works
Four steps, and the first one is the only one that needs you.
Tell us what the site produces
Postcode, what kind of premises, roughly how much waste and of what sort, and where it can be stored. A photo of the bin area or the current pile helps more than any form field. Send it through the form on this page, on WhatsApp, or ring 0207 101 4003.
Match the container and collection frequency
We come back with a recommendation: bags or bins, which sizes, which streams, how often. It’s based on what you told us about the premises, not on what we’d like to sell. If a premises is better served by bags than by a bin we’ll say so.
Confirm the collection and paperwork
You confirm the schedule. We set up the waste transfer note (one annual note for recurring accounts, one per load for one-offs) and, for recurring accounts, the Direct Debit or invoicing arrangement. Nothing is collected until the paperwork exists.
Start the agreed schedule
Bags delivered from stock, bins delivered to the premises, first collection on the agreed day. Recurring accounts typically start within 24 to 48 hours of confirmation, because the stock is ours and the round is ours.
What commercial waste collection costs in London
We don’t publish a tariff on this page, because a commercial waste price depends on the premises and a number pulled out of the air would be wrong for most of the people reading it. What we can tell you is what moves the price, so that you can compare any quote you’re given, ours included.
The quote inputs that change the rate
Volume and weight. Collection frequency. Which streams are separated and how clean they are. Access: whether the van can stop outside, how far the bins are carried, whether there’s a time window the borough enforces. Location, because a premises in the City is a different job from one in Watford. Get those five right and the quote is accurate. Leave them vague and every supplier will guess high to protect themselves.
How to compare the real invoiced cost
Two quotes with the same headline rate can produce very different invoices once weight allowances, contamination charges, container rental, paperwork charges and notice periods are added in. Our guide to commercial waste collection costs walks through the charge categories and gives you a worksheet to lay two quotes side by side.
Commercial waste compliance without the jargon
A business has three legal duties around its waste. None of them is complicated, and all three are things a decent collector handles for you as part of the job.
Use an authorised waste carrier
Anyone who takes commercial waste away from your premises must be registered with the Environment Agency as a waste carrier. Capital Recycle Ltd is an upper-tier registered carrier, licence number CBDU466346, and you can check that on the public register in under a minute. If a collector can’t give you a registration number, don’t hand them the waste.
Keep the correct waste records
Every transfer of waste needs a waste transfer note: a record of who handed over what, to whom, and when. You keep it for two years. Recurring collections can be covered by one annual note. We issue and hold them for every customer; our waste transfer note guide explains what one has to contain.
Prepare for digital waste tracking changes
The government is moving waste records onto a digital tracking service, phased in by participant type. Most of the new obligation falls on carriers and receiving sites rather than on the businesses that produce the waste, but the timetable has moved more than once. Our digital waste tracking guide is kept current against the GOV.UK page.
London access and waste-presentation rules
Most London boroughs restrict when commercial waste can be put out on the public highway, and the City of London runs the tightest windows of all. A collection that works in Croydon can be a fine in Cheapside.
Storage, loading and collection windows
If you have a bin store, a yard or a back corridor, none of this affects you much. If your waste goes out on the pavement, the presentation window decides your collection time, which decides which of our rounds you sit on. We build the schedule around the rule, not the other way round.
Check the rule for your borough
Our London presentation-times checker lists the verified windows with a link to each council’s own page, so you can see the rule and when we last checked it.
Why use Commercial Waste London?
A Capital Recycle Ltd service
This website and the service behind it are run by Capital Recycle Ltd, company number 14062640, VAT number 460344904, upper-tier waste carrier CBDU466346. It’s the same crew, the same vans and the same phone number as capitalrecycle.co.uk. We’ve put the commercial-waste side of the business on its own site because that’s what most people searching for it are looking for, and the rest of what we do (pallets, construction loads, office clearances) gets in the way.
Clear collection and compliance information
The guides on this site exist because the same questions come up on the phone every week: what counts as commercial waste, whether a contract is legally required, what a transfer note has to say, when the bins can go out in Westminster. We’d rather you read the answer here than pay someone to tell you.
A quote based on the actual premises
You send the postcode and a photo. We price the job in front of us. If the premises would be better served by something we don’t sell, we’ll say that too. What we won’t do is quote you a number off a web calculator and then find the real price on the day.
Commercial waste collection questions
Can a small business use commercial waste collection?
Yes, and most of our customers are small. A single café, a two-person office, a market stall. The bag service exists for exactly that: no bin, no minimum contract length, pay for the bags you use. You don’t need to be producing a skip a week to get a proper collection.
Can a business use bags and bins together?
Yes. A restaurant might run a general-waste bin in the yard, a glass bin next to it, and recycling bags at the front because that’s where the card piles up. The transfer note covers all of it. The schedule is built around whichever combination makes the premises work.
Can commercial recycling be collected without general waste?
Yes, though in practice almost every premises has some general waste and it’s cheaper to have both collected on the same round. If you already have a general-waste arrangement and just need recycling or glass picked up, ask. Recycling-only collections are a normal request.
What information is needed for an accurate quote?
The postcode. What kind of business it is. Roughly how much waste per week and which streams. Where the waste can be stored and whether the van can stop outside. A photo of the bin area. With those, we can quote accurately first time. Without them, we ask.
Get a commercial waste collection quote
Postcode, phone number, and a line about the premises. A person reads it and comes back to you. If it’s quicker, ring 0207 101 4003 or send the photos on WhatsApp to the same number.
Get a quote
Send the postcode and a photo of where the waste sits, and a person comes back with a price or a question.
Or email office@capitalrecycle.co.uk · WhatsApp photos to the same number.