The Waste Regulations 2011 placed a legal obligation on all businesses to apply the 'waste hierarchy' and separate waste materials to reduce their environmental impact.
The Waste hierarchy set out the priority order for managing waste materials based on their environment impacts, which is:
- Waste prevention
- Preparing for reuse
- Other recovery
In Scotland, Waste Regulations or 'Zero Waste Regulations' came into force in 2014 and required all businesses to separate key materials like plastic, glass, metal, paper and card for recycling. Businesses producing over 50kg of food waste a week also had to present it for separate collection.