Bulky waste

Our expertise in this area has informed national good practice guidelines and has assisted local authorities in managing their bulky waste effectively. We have provided consultancy support to nearly twenty local authorities, covering many important aspects of bulky waste management.

While we remain completely independent of, we have worked closely with the Furniture Re-use Network (FRN) since 2002 on several projects. With FRN we have produced a local authority good practice toolkit, commissioned by Defra, and entitled Bulky Waste Collections: Maximising Reuse & Recycling. We have also undertaken a cost modelling study on their behalf, which assessed the costs/benefits of implementing different types of bulky waste service.

Why it is important to manage bulky waste effectively

assess the costs and benefits of operating different types of bulky waste services
ensure your bulky waste collections are used effectively
be aware how bulky waste collections contribute to your recycling targets
assess the percentage of reusable and recyclable waste, and the numbers and tonnage of different types of items in the bulky waste stream
comply with new legislation that affects bulky waste (e.g., WEEE Directive affecting white goods)

How we can help you

develop strategies for recycling and reusing items from local authority bulky waste collections
identify furniture reuse organisations (FROs), and/or recycling organisations, with the skills to handle items from bulky waste collections
support the process of developing a partnership with FROs, and/or recycling organisations, including drawing up contracts and/or service level agreements
carry out audits of the bulky waste stream
assess the financial costs/benefits of increasing levels of recycling/reuse derived from the bulky waste stream
identify any overlap with bulky waste originating from the HWRCs, and integrating the management of bulky waste from HWRC and household collections, in order to maximise operational efficiency, reuse and recycling