The Separation of Waste (England) Regulations 2025: RPC opinion (green rated)
Regulatory Policy Committee’s opinion on Defra's Impact Assessment (IA) in respect of the Separation of Waste (England) Regulations 2025 – Simpler recycling
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The policy proposes to improve consistency of six recyclable waste streams from households (food waste; plastics; metal; glass; paper and card; garden waste) and for these recyclable waste streams (except garden waste) to be collected from non-household municipal (NHM) sector, across collections in England.
This is a revised IA to one first submitted for RPC scrutiny in April 2022 and previously updated in March 2023, December 2023 and April 2024. This is a detailed IA which presents different policy choices for the final policy proposal. The IA draws on appropriate data sources and evidence to underpin a proportionate assessment, sufficiently identifying the direct costs on business. The IA considers the impact on micro and small businesses, allowing a two-year exemption to adjust to the regulations.
The IA was first submitted for RPC scrutiny in April 2022 and updated in March 2023, December 2023 and April 2024. This is a revised opinion to those issued by the RPC on those IAs in July 2022, May 2023, January 2024 and May 2024. The present IA reflects a policy change affecting the estimated direct costs to business: paper and card are now to be collected separately from the other recyclable waste streams as the default, unless a short-written assessment is produced by local authorities and other waste collectors. Significant additions to the May 2024 opinion are presented under the heading ‘Update to previous opinion’. To avoid confusion and to assist clarity, the present opinion removes comments from the May 2023, January 2024 and May 2024 opinions that were specifically on the minor updates made to the respective IAs. The present opinion, however, retains, in general, the more substantive comments made in the original (2022) opinion.