Household waste in the United Kingdom

Household waste in the United Kingdom is generally managed by local councils, paid for through Council Tax. This page summarises all ways in which household waste is disposed of (and modelled in OSM) in the UK.

Waste and Recycling is the subject of the OSMUK quarterly project 2021/Q4.

Household Waste Recycling Centre (HWRC)

A household waste recycling centre (HWRC) is a staffed place where residents can take household waste to be recycled, treated or disposed of. Each local authority area has a legal responsibility to provide this service to residents, and the service is usually provided in multiple sites across the local authority area. HWRCs might be known by different names in different areas, or by different people.

A 'resident' is defined as someone from a household that pays Council Tax to the authority that operates the HWRC.

A HWRC used to be colloquially known as 'the tip' or 'the dump'.

Our preference is mapping as an area, this can be refined later with a (separate) fence/wall line with gates. You may use a node if it really isn't obvious where the boundary is.

Local authorities sometimes have a number of waste management services located at the same site, e.g. a publicly accessible tip and a non-publicly accessible waste transfer station. From aerial photographs it is not always easy to identify the boundaries.

OSM defines this as: amenity=recycling + recycling_type=centre

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Bring Site (or Recycling Point)

A Bring Site is an unstaffed place where any member of the public can bring household waste to be recycled. It generally takes the form of a group of recycling bins in. The location may be on a pavement by shops or in a supermarket carpark. Sites like a supermarket carpark would not be owned or operated by the Local Authority.

OSM does not currently have a distinct concept for a Bring Site.

OSM defines this as: amenity=recycling + recycling_type=centre (i.e. the same as a HWRC) It may be mapped as a single amenity=recycling + recycling_type=container with multiple types of accepted items. It could be multiple containers.

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Individual container

An individual container such as a clothes recycling bin is sometimes placed at a school, etc. These are not classed as a HWRC or a Bring Site. OSM defines this as: amenity=recycling + recycling_type=container

Small public recycling bin

Some Councils place small bins, sometimes with different sections for glass/paper, in publicly accessible locations.

Residents recycling bins

Some areas, such as Aberdeen, have shared recycling bins intended for use by a specific block of flats/houses

If you can take a photo of these, then please upload to OSMWiki and display here.

Waste Transfer Stations

A Waste Transfer Station is a location where waste is processed, sorted, etc. before the next step in its journey. This is frequently not open to the public. For example, it may be where the bin lorry takes your household waste, or could be a scrap metal merchants.

OSM defines this as: amenity=waste_transfer_station

OpenWasteMap

OpenWasteMap is a prototype web site for citizens and Councils was created at Code The City 22. The site displays info from OSM and Wikidata. it enables a citizen to ask, "i live at x and want to recycle y, where could i take it?"

A citizen can provide updates to OSM. This currently posts a note.

OpenWasteMap

List of HWRCs

The list of HWRCs have been taken from the the Environment Agency election public register (EA ePR) and Scotland’s waste sites and capacity data tool.

The "identifier" field in the table follows the hwrc-identifier logic as laid out in Open3R data standard for HWRCs.