Waste storage and collection as unit numbers rise

Bin storage is the detail most likely to force a late redesign on a flatted scheme, because it has to satisfy two parties with different rules. The collection authority sets the capacity, the container sizes and the distances it will accept. The designer has to fit the result somewhere that is not on the street frontage, not on an escape route, and not so far from the entrance that residents leave bags outside. Bin storage requirements for flats scale faster than floorspace does, so the store sized for eight units does not simply double for sixteen.

Settle the arithmetic before the ground floor plan is fixed. A refuse store added at planning stage always displaces something that was paying for itself.

Capacity calculation by unit and stream

The calculation is a volume, not a bin count. Take the litres per dwelling per week that the collection authority publishes for each stream, multiply by the number of dwellings, divide by the collection frequency for that stream, and then choose containers.

Four points that change the answer:

• streams multiply the requirement, since residual, dry mixed recycling, glass, food waste and garden waste each need their own containers and their own footprint
• collection frequency matters more than capacity per dwelling, because a fortnightly residual collection needs twice the stored volume of a weekly one
• an allowance for a missed or delayed collection is normal practice on larger schemes
• containers come in standard sizes, commonly 1,100 litre four wheeled bins for communal residual and recycling, so the answer rounds up to whole bins

BS 5906, the code of practice for waste management in buildings, is the reference most authorities work from for store design, access and container handling. Read it alongside the collection authority's own guide, and where the two differ, the authority's guide wins because its crews do the work.

Carry distances the collection service accepts

Two distances govern the position of the store. How far a resident carries waste from their front door, and how far the crew drags a loaded container to the vehicle.

Commonly published figures are around 30 metres for the resident carry and around 25 metres for the crew drag, with a shorter limit where the route involves a gradient or a threshold. Both are set locally, so take them from the authority's published guide rather than from another borough's standard. Gradients matter as much as distance, because a full 1,100 litre bin on a slope is a manual handling problem the crew will refuse.

Design the route as well as the distance. Level thresholds, dropped kerbs where the route crosses a carriageway, a door wide enough for the largest container with clearance, doors that open outwards and hold open, and no steps anywhere. A store that meets the distance but has a 40 millimetre upstand at the door fails in use.

Store ventilation, drainage and washdown

A communal store is a wet, smelly space with insects in summer, and the specification either deals with that or the management company does not.

The elements that appear in officer comments and in collection authority responses are ventilation, preferably passive and to outside air, a washable impervious floor with a fall to a trapped gully, a hose tap, sealed cleanable wall finishes, and lighting on a sensor. Where the store sits inside the building, it needs to be a separate fire compartment and not open onto a protected escape route, which is a building regulations matter that changes the ground floor plan rather than a planning detail.

Food waste needs cool, vermin proof storage, and on schemes with a restaurant or a commercial unit at ground floor the commercial waste has to be kept separate from the residential provision, with its own collection arrangement.

Bulky waste and the streams people forget

Sofas, mattresses and flat pack furniture arrive with every new occupier and leave with every departing one, and a scheme with no bulky waste provision accumulates them in the car park. A small lockable area, or a marked space in the store with a stated management arrangement, answers the point.

The same goes for the first six months after occupation, when packaging volumes run well above the steady state. Build a little headroom into the recycling provision rather than sizing to the exact calculation, because the alternative is bags stacked beside a full bin in the week the council photographs the site.

Two more that get missed on larger schemes. Textile and small electrical collection, where the authority provides it. And space for a commercial style compactor or a Eurobin holding area where the scheme is large enough that a single collection cannot take the whole volume.

Where a management company becomes necessary

Beyond a handful of units, someone has to move containers to the collection point, clean the store, and report a missed collection. That someone is either the collection authority, where it agrees to enter the site, or a management company funded through the service charge.

Say which in the application. A named arrangement, with the cleaning frequency and the person responsible for presenting containers, answers the question officers are actually asking. Councils increasingly want the arrangement described before permission is granted, because a store that depends on crew entering private land without agreement is a store that does not get emptied. Where the scheme includes affordable housing managed by a registered provider, coordinate the arrangement across tenures so that one part of the scheme is not left out, an issue that connects to the mix questions in our note on housing mix and space standards as schemes grow.

Interaction with vehicle tracking

The refuse vehicle is usually the largest vehicle that will enter the site, and it decides the geometry of the access road. Get the collection authority's vehicle dimensions and turning circle, and track the actual vehicle rather than a generic template.

What follows from that is a set of layout consequences: a turning head where the vehicle cannot leave in forward gear, a limit on reversing distance that most authorities publish, carriageway construction capable of taking the axle loads, and swept paths past parked cars rather than an idealised empty street. The Transport Assessment for a larger scheme should include the refuse vehicle tracking, and on a smaller scheme it goes in the transport statement or on the layout drawing. The same logic applies to a single point of access, as our piece on highways and a single access to an internal road network sets out.

Getting the store agreed before submission

Send the calculation and the store drawing to the waste team before you submit. Most collection authorities will comment informally, and their comment at that stage costs nothing, while the same comment arriving as a consultation response at week six costs a redesign and an extension of time.

Put in the application a short waste note containing the capacity calculation, the container schedule, the store plan at a readable scale, the carry distances annotated, the management arrangement and the vehicle tracking. That is the substance of a Waste Management Strategy, and on a major scheme it sits alongside the construction phase waste arrangements rather than replacing them.

One honest uncertainty: capacity standards and carry distances vary enough between authorities that a scheme designed to one borough's guide can fail in the next. Always take the figures from the authority that will actually collect.

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