Nottingham City Council is preparing for one of the biggest shake-ups to local recycling and waste services in a decade, as national “Simpler Recycling” rules begin to take effect and local systems are redesigned to meet new environmental and financial realities.
The council’s Head of Waste and Cleansing will present the direction of waste services to the People and Communities Scrutiny Committee next week, outlining a multi-year transformation plan that will see food waste collections introduced, major contract changes, and adjustments to household recycling systems between 2025 and 2030.
Under the Government’s new Simpler Recycling legislation, all councils in England must offer kerbside collections of a consistent set of materials to every household. For Nottingham, this means adding foil and cartons to recycling bins by March 2026, and introducing collections of plastic films and bags by March 2027. Weekly separate food waste collections must then be in place for all domestic households by 2030, with phased roll-out expected to begin around 2028.
The plan is designed to end the so-called ‘postcode lottery’ in recycling rules across England, making it easier for residents and businesses to recycle the same items wherever they live. Businesses with more than ten employees were already required from March 2025 to separate core materials and food waste for collection.
For Nottingham City Council, the transition will involve a comprehensive review of collection routes, fleet procurement, bin types, and new disposal contracts. The Government has indicated £1.9 million in “burdens” funding for food waste setup and £5 million under the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme to support implementation, but detailed modelling and allocation are still being developed through the council’s executive governance routes.
Officials emphasised that the new approach builds on changes made in 2024, when the council ended the long-standing practice of collecting extra side waste and overfilled bins—known as “top hatters”—and introduced a £1.2 million-a-year garden waste subscription service. That policy, driven partly by national safety guidance following a fatality involving a waste operative in Coventry, led to a fall in contamination rates and improved health and safety compliance, even though overall recycling contributions from garden waste dropped slightly.
Between 2021 and 2025, Nottingham’s total household waste fell from 117,449 tonnes to 111,813 tonnes, while dry recycling rose marginally to 18,688 tonnes, giving a dry recycling rate of 16.7 per cent—still below national averages. The city’s overall reuse, recycling and composting rate has fluctuated between 25 and 28 per cent in recent years. Reducing contamination has saved the council more than £300,000 annually, and further improvements are targeted through communication and engagement work.
A long-term “Waste Transformation Project” is now in development, encompassing domestic, commercial and food waste services. It will include staff recruitment and training, public information campaigns, new software systems, and coordination with the Nottinghamshire Waste Partnership and Joint Officer Board. Key priorities are to align the city’s new waste disposal contracts with national reforms, maximise food waste diversion from residual bins, and secure best-value procurement for vehicles and containers.
Nationally, the Simpler Recycling initiative aims for a 65 per cent recycling rate by 2035. For Nottingham, officials acknowledge that achieving significant gains will depend on local demographics and housing stock, and that separating materials such as paper and glass may prove challenging in densely built-up areas. The Government’s preferred model is for paper and card to be collected separately, but councils can justify other approaches through a TEEP (Technically, Environmentally and Economically Practicable) assessment.
A previous public consultation in 2022 revealed mixed preferences among residents: 38 per cent favoured fortnightly twin-stream collections, 37 per cent weekly multi-stream, and 16 per cent had no preference. The council says further engagement will be vital as options are refined and the new system is rolled out.
