Waste storage calculations and bin store design

A refuse storage calculation for a planning application has three parts: a waste generation rate taken from the authority's own published standard, a container mix that matches the collection rounds in that area, and a store the crew can reach within the carry distance the building regulations guidance recommends. Get any one of those wrong and the drawings come back annotated, usually at the validation stage rather than at determination.

The rate is the part people invent. And it is the easiest thing in the pack to get right. Every waste authority publishes its own figures, in litres per dwelling per week or per 100 m2 of commercial floorspace, and they differ because collection frequencies differ. Take the number from the authority, cite the document and the date, and show the arithmetic.

How the storage volume is worked out

The method is the same everywhere. Multiply the generation rate by the number of units, then by the number of weeks between collections, then divide by the usable capacity of the container you intend to use. Usable capacity is not the nominal capacity, because bins are never filled to the rim and lids have to close, so a working allowance is normal practice.

An illustrative calculation, with assumed figures that must be replaced by the authority's own published rates:

1. Forty flats at an assumed 90 litres of residual waste per flat per week gives 3,600 litres per week.
2. Collections are fortnightly, so the store has to hold 7,200 litres of residual waste.
3. At a usable 1,000 litres per 1,100-litre Eurobin, that is eight residual bins.
4. Repeat for dry recycling on the same frequency and for food waste on a weekly frequency, which usually adds a smaller number of 240-litre wheeled bins.

Run the same arithmetic for every stream the authority collects separately, then add the bulky waste provision. Many authorities require a separate area for bulky items in flatted schemes, because without one the items end up in the bin store or the car park.

Residual, recycling and food waste as separate streams

Separate collection of glass, metal, plastic, paper and card, and food waste from households is now the baseline across England, with the detail of which streams are co-mingled set by the collection authority. That matters for the drawing rather than the policy section, because co-mingled dry recycling needs fewer, larger containers and fully separated streams need more, smaller ones.

Commercial units in a mixed scheme sit outside the household arrangements. They arrange their own collections under the duty of care, so the store for a ground floor cafe is sized on the occupier's trade waste contract and not on the residential rate. Show the two provisions separately, with separate access, and the Waste Management Strategy will survive consultation with the waste team.

Construction waste is a different document again. Site arisings, segregation targets and off-site reuse belong in a Site Waste Management Plan, not in the operational storage calculation.

Carry distances, gradients and the collection point

Approved Document H to the Building Regulations 2010 deals with solid waste storage in Part H6, and the figures it gives are the ones waste officers quote back at you. The guidance recommends that occupiers should not have to carry waste more than about 30 m to the store, and that the collection vehicle should be able to get within about 25 m of the container standing position. Check the current edition, because the document has been revised.

But gradients matter more than most drawings admit. A loaded 1,100-litre Eurobin weighs several hundred kilograms, and crews will refuse to pull one up a slope. Keep the route between the store and the vehicle standing position close to level, avoid steps entirely, use dropped kerbs rather than ramps where a level change is unavoidable, and keep the surface in a bound material rather than gravel or grass.

Three details that get drawings rejected:

• A store reached only through a locked residential core, so the crew cannot collect without a key.
• A bin presentation point on a bend where the vehicle cannot stop legally.
• A door leaf narrower than the bin plus the knuckles of the person pushing it.

Designing the store itself

For houses, storage is usually a screened area within the curtilage, and the planning question is whether it is visible from the street and whether it blocks the front door. For flats, the store is a building, and it needs to be designed as one.

Smell and vermin drive most neighbour objections to a bin store, and both are solved by ventilation, a washable floor and a management plan that sets a cleaning frequency. A store tucked under a bedroom window will attract an objection however well it is detailed, so the siting decision belongs in the Design and Access Statement rather than being left to the refuse drawing.

Where the scheme is tight, an underground or semi-underground container system can halve the footprint, but it brings a maintenance liability and a lifting vehicle requirement that the waste authority has to agree in advance. Do not draw one without that agreement.

How the calculation connects to the rest of the submission

The storage calculation is a small part of a larger evidence chain, and the figures have to match across documents. The bin numbers set the store footprint, the store footprint sets the ground floor plan, the vehicle standing position sets the geometry the highway officer checks, and the collection frequency sets the management plan. If the transport drawings show a 26-tonne refuse vehicle and the store is 40 m from where that vehicle can stop, the two documents contradict each other and the officer will spot it.

Capacity of the wider services follows the same logic as other site infrastructure, and the approach to evidencing it is set out in the guide to utilities capacity evidence for a residential scheme. Treat waste the same way: a sourced rate, a calculation, and a drawing that matches it.

Conditions that follow approval

Expect a condition requiring details of refuse and recycling storage to be submitted and approved before the dwellings are occupied, and a second requiring the approved facilities to be retained. On flatted schemes a management plan condition is common, covering cleaning, bin presentation and who holds the key.

Discharging those conditions is easier when the original submission already contained the arithmetic. Officers are reluctant to sign off a store they cannot check, and a one-line statement that provision "will be in accordance with council standards" is the commonest reason a discharge application stalls.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Waste storage standards, generation rates and collection arrangements are set locally and change, so check the current position with your local planning authority before relying on anything here.

If you are assembling the operational waste documents for a scheme, the deeper treatment of the strategy document itself is in the guide to waste storage calculations within a waste management strategy, and PlanScope will draft the strategy from your scheme details in minutes.

PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.