UK commercial waste statistics: Workplace Waste Statistics
The median published figure in the Workplace Waste Statistics is 67 percent across 3 sources' own pages (range 46 to 79.80 percent), read 12 September 2026.
3 of the 13 named sources read in full publish a figure; 10 publish none, read 12 September 2026.
By nation
| Breakdown | Median | Range | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| nation GB-WLS | 73.4 % | 67 to 79.8 % | 2 |
| nation GB | 46 % | 46 to 46 % | 1 |
Every figure, with its source
One row per source: the figure the source's own page publishes, the page, and the day it was read. A figure that is not on a page we read is not on this one.
| Source | Figure | Breakdown | Read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Welsh Government: local authority municipal waste management, April 2024 to March 2025 | 79.8 % | GB-WLS | 2026-09-12 |
| Natural Resources Wales: Industrial and Commercial Waste Survey | 67 % | GB-WLS | 2026-09-12 |
| WRAP: overview of waste in the hospitality and food service sector | 46 % | GB | 2026-09-12 |
The sentence each figure was read from (3)
- Welsh Government: local authority municipal waste management, April 2024 to March 2025, read 2026-09-12:
During the same period, the non-household recycling rate decreased by 1.1 percentage points to 79.8%.
- Natural Resources Wales: Industrial and Commercial Waste Survey, read 2026-09-12:
The preparation for re-use, recycling & composting rate for industrial and commercial waste generated combined increased by 9 percentage points from 58% to 67%, while the land disposal rate decreased sharply, dropping from 26% to 11%
- WRAP: overview of waste in the hospitality and food service sector, read 2026-09-12:
The total amount of waste, including food, packaging and other ‘non-food’ waste, produced each year at HaFS outlets is 2.87 million tonnes, of which 46% is recycled, sent to anaerobic digestion (AD) or composted.
Read in full, publishes no figure
10 named sources were read in full on the dates shown and print no usable figure. They are counted, never filled in.
- Defra: UK waste data (statistics collection), read 2026-09-11: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- Defra: local authority collected waste management, annual results 2024/25, read 2026-09-12: every candidate on the page was refused
- Defra: local authority collected waste management - annual results (series page), read 2026-09-11: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- data.gov.uk: UK Statistics on Waste dataset, read 2026-09-12: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- SEPA: business waste data (Scotland), read 2026-09-12: every candidate on the page was refused
- Welsh Government: new stats show another increase in recycling in Wales, read 2026-09-12: every candidate on the page was refused
- DAERA: commercial and industrial waste arising survey for Northern Ireland, read 2026-09-12: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- DAERA: Northern Ireland commercial and industrial waste estimates 2009, read 2026-09-12: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- the four nations' statistical producers, read 2026-09-11: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- gov.uk, read 2026-09-11: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
Methodology
Every row is a verbatim sentence read from the named source's own page through the estate's fetch service on the date shown, hash-pinned to the stored read (the sha of the page's visible text; the raw page is mirrored to R2).
3 of the 13 named sources that could be read published a usable figure; 10 published none and are recorded as not published, never filled in; 0 could not be read (blocked, dead or unreachable) and count nowhere.
The headline figures (median, minimum, maximum, quartiles) are over ONE figure per source in % (a source's median where its page yielded several accepted sentences), so N counts sources, never sentences; 53 candidate sentence(s) were refused by a reviewer with the reason recorded.
The fuller derivation this dataset is chartered to grow into (not yet what the figures above are; they are each source's own published figure as read): one comparable series per nation for commercial and industrial waste generated and the share recycled, rebased onto a common year and a common definition, with the per-employee and per-workplace intensity derived by joining the arisings to the ONS business population - which none of the four statistical producers publishes, because each reports tonnes on its own survey cycle and none divides by the businesses that made them.
Plus the Wales workplace-recycling series as the only natural experiment in the UK: the change in workplace recyclate collected since a separation duty started.
53 candidate sentences on these pages were refused by a reviewer; each refusal and its reason is recorded in the review ledger.
Sources (13)
- Defra: UK waste data (statistics collection) (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- Defra: local authority collected waste management, annual results 2024/25 (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- Defra: local authority collected waste management - annual results (series page) (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- data.gov.uk: UK Statistics on Waste dataset (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- SEPA: business waste data (Scotland) (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- Natural Resources Wales: Industrial and Commercial Waste Survey (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- Welsh Government: local authority municipal waste management, April 2024 to March 2025 (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- Welsh Government: new stats show another increase in recycling in Wales (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- DAERA: commercial and industrial waste arising survey for Northern Ireland (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- DAERA: Northern Ireland commercial and industrial waste estimates 2009 (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- WRAP: overview of waste in the hospitality and food service sector (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- the four nations' statistical producers (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- gov.uk (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
Cite or embed this figure
The median published figure in the Workplace Waste Statistics is 67 percent across 3 sources' own pages (range 46 to 79.80 percent), read 12 September 2026.
3 of the 13 named sources read in full publish a figure; 10 publish none, read 12 September 2026.
Workplace Waste Statistics, nation GB-WLS: median 73.40 percent across 2 sources, read 12 September 2026.
Workplace Waste Statistics, nation GB: median 46 percent across 1 source, read 12 September 2026.
Cite as: "workplacerecyclingrules.co.uk Workplace Waste Statistics", updated 2026-10-05, https://workplacerecyclingrules.co.uk/datasets/workplace-waste-statistics/.
Download the CSV (3 rows, computed 2026-10-05)