What waste does an office produce?

Mixed recycling is the dominant stream for most offices. Paper, card from packaging, plastic bottles and yoghurt pots from desk lunches, drink cans. The volume comes from the staff kitchen and the print room rather than the workstations themselves.

Food waste from staff kitchens is now a required stream in its own right. Even a 30-person office tends to produce enough food residue, coffee grounds and tea bags to warrant a small caddy.

Confidential paper is the stream most offices underspec. Printouts, notes, client letters, anything with personal data needs to go to confidential shred rather than the recycling bin. Under GDPR, businesses are responsible for how personal data is destroyed and need an auditable Certificate of Destruction for each pickup.

WEEE is the periodic stream. IT refresh, monitor swaps, end-of-life kit. Handled as a one-off collection or rolled into an annual scheduled pickup. General waste is what’s left after the others are separated. For a well-set-up office, that’s much smaller than people expect.

What’s the typical bin spec for an office?

A 30 to 50-person office usually runs a 660L general waste bin on weekly collection, a 1100L mixed recycling bin weekly, a 240L food waste bin on weekly or twice-weekly collection, and confidential shred sacks or consoles on a regular pickup cycle (monthly is common).

Smaller offices with under 20 staff can manage with a 240L general, a 240L mixed recycling, and an on-demand confidential collection. Larger sites with 100+ staff move up to multiple 1100L bins or a small FEL setup.

What specialist streams do offices deal with?

Confidential paper is the big one. GDPR requires personal data to be destroyed in a way that prevents recovery, and an auditable trail is part of compliance. Shred-to-bag, on-site shredding or off-site bulk shred with Certificate of Destruction are the three main options.

WEEE under the WEEE Regulations 2013 covers IT and office electronics. Most carriers offer a take-back or scheduled pickup service. Batteries from keyboards, remotes and laptop swaps fall under the Batteries Regulations 2009 and need separate disposal.

Food waste under Simpler Recycling from 31 March 2025 in England applies to offices with 10 or more employees. Smaller offices have until 31 March 2027.

What compliance pitfalls catch offices out?

The first is GDPR shred trail. If a Data Subject Access Request or ICO query comes in, you need to show how personal data was destroyed. A bag dropped in general waste won’t pass.

The second is serviced office contamination. Tenants in managed buildings sometimes assume waste is handled by the landlord and aren’t actively segregating. That can mean the building’s bins fail contamination checks and the landlord passes the cost back through service charges.

Duty of Care Waste Transfer Notes still apply to offices the same as any other business. Keep them for two years.