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Waste solutions for rural businesses

Waste management is a challenge for most businesses, but those located in the countryside face additional complications.

Often, regular collection services are severely limited, and the distances to the nearest recycling centres can make waste disposal more onerous and costly.

This guide explains and recommends the services rural businesses can use to manage and dispose of their waste. Here are the key subjects we cover:

What is rural waste management?
Waste collection options for rural businesses
Recycling for businesses in rural areas
Waste disposal options for rural businesses
Our rural waste collection services
Regulations for rural waste management

What is rural waste management?

Rural waste management refers to the processes and strategies used to handle commercial waste generated by businesses in the countryside. It encompasses everything from the storage and collection of waste to its recycling, treatment, and final disposal.

Farms, B&Bs, and workshops dominate the rural economy, and small-scale manufacturers produce a wide range of goods.

These rural businesses generate a diverse range of waste streams, which must be managed responsibly to protect the local environment and to comply with UK waste regulations.

Waste collection options for rural businesses

In this section, we’ll explain the three main options for waste and recycling collections of business waste in rural locations.

Local council waste collection

Most local councils provide the following regular waste collection services to all homes in their region, including rural communities:

General waste
Food waste
Dry mixed recycling

Many councils offer to include local businesses in these collections for a fee.

A local council service is unlikely to offer a flexible collection schedule, but their commercial waste collection costs are usually competitive.

Private waste collection services

Most businesses in the UK rely on private commercial waste collection providers for regular waste and recycling services.

However, finding a reliable collection provider in rural areas can be challenging, as many providers only offer regular collections in towns and cities.

We recommend considering national waste providers such as Veolia or Biffa, who offer the broadest coverage on their collection routes.

Skip hire and one-off waste collections

Many rural businesses in the tourism sector rely on one-off disposal services to help manage seasonal spikes in waste generation.

One-off waste collections allow businesses to manage waste effectively while avoiding the long-term commitment of waste contracts.

Here’s a summary of the best one-off waste collection services:

Skip hire – Suitable for general business waste or green waste. Skip hire companies provide a skip for you to keep on-site until it is full, at which point it is collected by your provider.
Man and van waste removal – Small local waste firms offer flexible services for one-off collection of various types of waste. A team will collect and load your waste on the same day, handling the disposal and recycling requirements.

Recycling for businesses in rural areas

The waste hierarchy requires rural businesses to segregate commonly recyclable materials, keeping them separate from general waste.

This can be challenging for rural businesses, where kerbside collection services are fewer and less frequent, and distances to recycling centres are longer.

Rural businesses typically need to store recycling for longer periods, which requires larger or additional commercial waste bins.

Where space for recycling bins is limited, rural businesses can use waste compacting solutions.

One advantage of storing large volumes of commercial cardboard recycling or commercial glass recycling is that rural businesses may be eligible for waste rebates.

Waste disposal options for rural businesses

In areas where regular waste collection services are limited, some businesses choose to transport their waste to nearby waste transfer stations or recycling facilities.

Waste providers often locate their disposal facilities in rural areas, so self-transportation of waste can be the most cost-effective option for rural companies.

A disposal facility will provide your business with a waste transfer note for each type of waste delivered. This note must be retained for two years to demonstrate compliance with commercial waste regulations.

💡 Businesses transporting their own waste must apply for a waste carrier licence, which costs approximately £150.

On-site waste solutions for rural businesses

On-site waste management solutions can be highly effective for rural businesses, helping to reduce dependency on external waste collection services.

Here are two of the most common on-site waste management solutions for rural businesses:

Composting

Composting is a beneficial waste management solution for any rural business with a garden, including cafes and guest houses.

Using a simple compost bin, food and garden waste can be converted into nutrient-rich compost that can be used to fertilise the garden.

Visit our page on composting for businesses for more information.

Anaerobic digestion units

Small-scale anaerobic digestion units are commonly used on farms in rural locations.

An anaerobic digester breaks down organic agricultural waste to generate renewable electricity and digestate (a fertiliser).

To learn more, visit our anaerobic digestion of waste page.

Our rural waste collection services

Our business waste experts provide management solutions for businesses in the following rural communities.

Welsh rural business waste collection

Many rural parts of Wales, such as Ceredigion, Powys, Gwynedd, and Carmarthenshire, have sparse populations and mountainous terrain. These factors make regular waste collection expensive and challenging for small businesses.

Visit our commercial waste collection Wales page to explore the best local collection services available.

Scottish rural business waste collection

Scotland has many rural communities where waste management is challenging, especially for island communities in the Hebrides and Shetlands. Waste collections in these areas can be affected by bad weather, which often causes delays to ferry crossings.

Visit our Scotland commercial waste collection page to discuss the best options.

Cornwall rural commercial waste collection

Cornwall experiences a massive seasonal influx of visitors during the summer months. While this boosts the local economy, it places significant pressure on small businesses in rural areas, particularly those in hospitality, to manage fluctuating waste volumes.

Explore flexible solutions on our commercial waste collection Cornwall page.

Regulations for rural waste management

Like all UK businesses, companies in rural locations have a duty of care over the waste they generate.

Visit our page on commercial waste regulations for a full breakdown of the duty of care rules.

There are specific considerations and prohibitions for businesses that generate waste in rural areas, which we’ll cover in this section.

Prohibited rural waste disposal

The following regulations prohibit specific types of waste disposal in the countryside:

Burning waste – The open burning of waste is generally prohibited unless authorised by an environmental permit.
Landfilling of waste – Establishing a landfill of any size requires an environmental permit and registration as a collector for the landfill tax.
Fly-tipping – The illegal dumping of waste is a criminal offence, punishable by unlimited fines, vehicle seizure, and imprisonment for those involved.

Rural waste management exemptions

Waste regulations in Scotland provide some flexibility for rural businesses where logistical challenges make compliance difficult.

Businesses in rural locations are exempt from the requirement to arrange a separate commercial food waste collection. Instead, these businesses can use a general business waste collection to dispose of food waste.

Farm waste management

The economy of rural areas is dominated by agriculture, which brings its own unique waste management challenges.

In addition to standard business waste types, farms must manage the following categories of specialist waste:

Agricultural plastics – Difficult to recycle plastic materials used in silage wrap, polytunnel film, and fertiliser bags.
Animal by-products – Biological waste from animals, which is heavily regulated to prevent the risk of disease transmission.
Hazardous waste – Common substances used on farms that are dangerous to human health, including pesticides, herbicides, veterinary medicines, and waste oils.

Farms typically engage specialist agricultural waste contractors to assist in managing these waste types.