The storage and collection section of a waste strategy

The storage and collection section is where a waste strategy either works or gets sent back. It has to show three things a waste officer can check: that the store holds enough containers for the occupancy and the collection interval, that residents and crews can reach it within the distances the authority applies, and that a collection vehicle can get to the presentation point and leave without reversing further than the authority allows. Everything else in a Waste Management Strategy supports those three points.

Get the store wrong and the consequences are permanent. A bin store that is 20 per cent undersized produces overflowing containers, side waste and complaints from the first week of occupation, and there is rarely anywhere to put a bigger one afterwards.

Calculating storage volume from occupancy

Start from generation rates rather than from a container count. The calculation multiplies an assumed waste generation rate per dwelling per week by the number of dwellings, then by the collection interval in weeks, with an allowance for container fill inefficiency.

Most authorities publish the generation rate they expect to see used, together with the container sizes on their round and the collection frequency for each stream. Use those figures rather than a national average, and cite the document they came from. Where the authority publishes nothing, say which source you used and why.

The occupancy assumption matters more than people expect. A scheme of one and two bedroom flats generates a different total from the same floorspace in family housing, and a build to rent scheme with high occupancy per unit generates more again. State the assumed occupancy per unit type in the calculation rather than burying it.

Then add the containers the authority will actually supply. Store dimensions have to accommodate the real containers with space to manoeuvre them, not a theoretical volume.

Separating recycling, refuse and food waste

Plan for more streams rather than fewer. Reforms under the Environment Act 2021 have moved English collections towards separate collection of dry recyclable materials and food waste from both households and workplaces, and the implementation dates have shifted more than once. Confirm the position with the waste collection authority at pre-application stage and design for what they will be collecting in three years, not what they collect now.

A workable store allows for residual waste, dry recycling, food waste, glass where it is collected separately, and bulky items awaiting collection. Garden waste needs a location too where the scheme has private gardens, even if the containers are stored within the plot.

Label the streams on the plan. A store drawn with an undifferentiated row of bins tells the officer nothing about whether the split between streams is right, and the split is where undersizing usually hides.

Drag distances and gradients

Two distances control the layout, and they pull in opposite directions.

The carry distance is how far a resident walks with a bag or a caddy from their front door to the store. The drag distance is how far a collection operative pulls a loaded container from the store to the vehicle. Authorities publish their own limits, and the commonly applied figures put the resident carry at a considerably longer distance than the operative drag, which is why the store usually has to sit close to the collection point rather than close to the dwellings.

Steps anywhere on either route are fatal to the design. A ramp is acceptable where it is shallow, and a dropped kerb at the presentation point is usually required so containers do not have to be lifted.

Where the store serves a basement or an upper level, a lift becomes part of the waste strategy, and the authority will want to know what happens when it fails.

Collection vehicle access and turning

Show the collection vehicle on the layout, tracked. That single drawing answers most of what the waste officer wants to know.

The relevant matters are the vehicle dimensions used by the authority's fleet, the carriageway width and construction needed to carry it, the turning provision where the vehicle cannot pass through, and the reversing distance. Authorities apply reversing limits because reversing is where collection injuries happen, and a layout requiring a long reverse will be refused whatever else it does well.

Where the vehicle cannot reach the store, the answer is a presentation point on the adopted highway with a bin holding area, and an agreed arrangement for moving containers to it. Say who moves them and when. An assumption that residents will present containers works for houses and rarely works for flats.

Overhanging trees, height barriers at car park entrances and shared surfaces with parked cars all defeat collection in practice. Check them against the vehicle envelope rather than assuming clearance.

Store ventilation, drainage and washdown

A bin store is a wet, smelly space and it needs building like one.

Specify impervious, washable wall and floor surfaces, a floor falling to a trapped gully, a water supply for washing down, and ventilation that works without blowing odour towards a window or a balcony. Where the store is enclosed and adjacent to habitable rooms, mechanical ventilation with a discharge point away from windows is usually needed, and that becomes an item in the planning drawings rather than a note.

Add vermin proofing, lighting on a sensor, and a secure access arrangement that lets the collection crew in without giving them a key they will lose. Fire separation matters too where the store is within or attached to a residential building.

Food waste storage is the element that generates complaints, so give it a location within the store where it can be washed down easily and is not the last thing a resident passes on the way in.

Commercial waste in mixed use schemes

Commercial and residential waste are collected under different arrangements. Household waste is collected by the waste collection authority. Commercial waste is the occupier's responsibility under the duty of care in the Environmental Protection Act 1990, collected by a private contractor under a separate contract.

That means separate stores in most cases, and it means two vehicle movements rather than one. Design for both, show both on the tracking drawing, and address the timing conflict: commercial collections often happen early, and a refuse vehicle in a residential courtyard at 6am is a noise objection waiting to be made.

Estimate commercial volumes from the proposed use rather than from floorspace alone. A restaurant generates a different profile from an office of the same size, with far more food waste and more glass, and the store has to reflect it.

What the waste authority checks

The consultation response tends to cover the same short list: total capacity against the authority's own generation figures, the split between streams, carry and drag distances, vehicle access and reversing, the presentation point, crew access to the store, and whether the site can be added to an existing round.

Answer each of those explicitly in the document, with a heading per item if that helps. A strategy that reads as a narrative and leaves the officer to extract the numbers gets a holding objection asking for the numbers.

Where the scheme also generates construction waste, that is a separate document with a separate purpose, dealt with through a Site Waste Management Plan rather than folded into the operational strategy.

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