Food manufacturing
Help for your business at each step of the journey.
Guidance for the food manufacturing sector
Change sectorWelcome to our Recycling Guide for food and drink manufacturers!
The tips in this step-by-step guide will help you to:
Optimise: get the most from your current waste collection service
Plan: design a recycling system that works for your business and employees
Reduce costs: recycling is often cheaper than disposal!
Get compliant: ensure your food or drink business complies with the new regulations
In this guide, we’ll take you through five steps to implementing recycling in your workplace – below is an outline of what we’ll be explaining. Whether you’re a large food or drink business operator or a specialist food producer, if your workplace is new to recycling, work your way through from Step 1. If you’re after advice on a particular stage, click the links below to jump to the relevant section.
Covered in this guide
- About our Recycling Guide for the food and drinks manufacturing sector
- Why your food and drinks manufacturing business needs to recycle
- Planning your recycling needs in the food and drinks manufacturing sector
- Calculating the collection cost of waste from your food and drinks manufacturing business
- Setting up recycling for your food or drinks manufacturing business
- Monitoring recycling services in food and drink manufacturing businesses
Content overview
About our Recycling Guide for the food and drinks manufacturing sector
This guide is for the person responsible for managing waste at your workplace or site. If you’re a large manufacturer or food or drink business operator with multiple sites, you may have a dedicated Waste Manager. If you’re a smaller operator, this may be the responsibility of the business owner or manager.
Why your food and drinks manufacturing business needs to recycle
New regulations will soon require your business to separate from your general waste, and in this guide, we’ll explain what to do to prepare. You have until 31 March 2025 if you have ten or more full-time equivalent employees, and until 31 March 2027 deadline if you have fewer than ten.
Planning your recycling needs in the food and drinks manufacturing sector
If you’re completely new to workplace recycling, this step will help you work out what waste your business generates and what you might need from a recycling service.
Calculating the collection cost of waste from your food and drinks manufacturing business
Making small changes could help your food or drink business to recycle more and save money. Our Waste Calculator tool estimates the amount of waste collected from your business and suggests an alternative, more environmentally friendly option to show where this might be possible.
Setting up recycling for your food or drinks manufacturing business
If you’ve carried out a waste audit and used the business waste calculator, you should now have a better understanding of the types of waste your business generates and options to recycle more.
Monitoring recycling services in food and drink manufacturing businesses
Once you have your workplace recycling set up and you’ve got your employees on board, it’s worth regularly monitoring and reviewing how it’s going. By doing so, you can share successes with your team and customers and look out for opportunities to improve.