Check if you operate a materials facility
Published 11 December 2025
Applies to England and Wales
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/materials-facilities-waste-sampling-and-reporting/check-if-you-operate-a-materials-facility
To check whether you operate a materials facility, you will need to consider the type of waste and how much waste you receive, as well as what you do with the waste.
What a materials facility is
Your facility (or part of your facility) may qualify as a materials facility if:
- it is in England or Wales
- you hold a permit for it under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016
- you receive specific types of waste material at that facility
- you sort that waste material to separate it for recycling or to prepare it for reuse, or bulk it for transport to another facility so it can be sorted there
Waste materials that define a materials facility
To qualify as a materials facility, the facility has to receive specific types of waste.
The relevant waste material must be:
- from a household source, or from a non-household source but similar to household waste in nature or composition
- separately collected for the primary purpose of recycling or preparing for reuse
- a single type of recyclable material (such as paper) or multiple materials mixed together (such as dry mixed recycling)
The waste must contain one or more of the following types of material:
- glass
- metal
- paper
- card
- plastic
- fibre-based composite materials
Wastes similar to household waste may include items you might typically find in the household waste stream like:
- plastic bottles (typically 3 litres or less)
- plastic pots, tubs and trays used for food packaging
- flexible plastic packaging
- glass bottles and jars
- steel or aluminium food tins and drinks cans
- newspapers and magazines
- cardboard packaging
This means waste material can include items like:
- tin cans from a cafe or work canteen
- office paper waste
- bottles from a pub
- cardboard from a pallet of bricks
- packaging waste (such as plastic bottles and drinks cans) generated at a construction site
Waste material would not include items like:
- bulk quantities of rejected unsold magazines
- shop fixings and displays made of metal, plastic or glass
- windows and doors made of plastic or glass
But when these materials are found in negligible quantities in other waste streams, this does not mean you should treat that whole stream as relevant waste material. For example, a cardboard box in a household garden waste collection, or a plastic bottle in a street bin collecting general waste, does not mean you should treat that load as relevant waste material.
Facilities likely to be materials facilities
Examples include:
- material recovery facilities (MRFs) sorting household dry recyclables
- commercial and industrial waste facilities that receive waste material to consolidate or sort into specified outputs
- waste transfer stations (WTS) that receive waste material from 2 or more suppliers to consolidate or sort into specified outputs
- facilities receiving and sorting single streams such as paper and card
- facilities consolidating waste material received from 2 or more suppliers into bulk outputs
Facilities not likely to be materials facilities
Examples include:
- facilities that consolidate and sort commercial and industrial waste, unless the commercial waste meets the definition of waste material
- MRFs or parts of MRFs sorting only residual waste (sometimes called ‘dirty’ MRFs)
- mechanical biological treatment (MBT) facilities, unless they accept material that meets the definition of waste material and operate MRF operations on that part of the facility
- refuse derived fuel (RDF) including solid recovered fuel (SRF) production facilities
- MRFs sorting materials from construction and demolition waste
- short term domestic skip hire sites
- re-processors carrying out recycling of the specified output material
When your facility will not be a materials facility
Your facility will not be a materials facility if any of the following apply:
- you only receive waste material from a single supplier and do not separate the material into specified output materials
- it is provided by or on behalf of a waste disposal authority (WDA) under section 51(1)(b) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to allow residents in its area to deposit their waste (for example, a household waste recycling centre or civic amenity site)
- it only processes or sorts waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), waste batteries or accumulators (where these activities are in part of your facility only, this part will not be a materials facility)
- it only processes and sorts residual waste collections (where these activities are in part of your facility only, this part will not be a materials facility)
Your facility will probably not be a materials facility if either of the following apply:
- you only consolidate waste material from a single supplier into bulked outputs
- you do not prepare the waste material for recycling or reuse
If only part of your site is a materials facility
Permitted facilities often contain more than one activity. You must consider whether all or part of your facility is a materials facility.
It may help to check whether you operate a materials facility for each part of your facility.
If you’re not sure
If you are still not sure if your facility or part of your facility is a materials facility, contact your regulator for advice.
In England
Email MFRegs@environment-agency.gov.uk