Westminster Council said its new night-time commercial waste recycling service in the West End is collecting 50 tonnes of mixed recycling and cardboard from businesses every week.
Since February 2024, the Council and its contractor Veolia have operated two night-time recycling rounds in Covent Garden, Soho and parts of Fitzrovia and Victoria, using quiet electric refuse vehicles.
Westminster Council estimates that about a third of the waste generated at night by the hospitality industry is food waste.
In October 2024, the Council started collecting food waste at night from restaurants, bars, pubs and hotels.
The food waste is taken to an anaerobic digester in Hertfordshire where it is turned into biogas and biofertilizer for local farmland.
Since the new night-time recycling service began, Westminster Council said it collected an additional 1,650 tonnes of mixed recycling, equivalent to an additional 1% on the Council’s waste recycling rate.
The Council said it is now looking at how it can successfully collect the glass generated at night by restaurants, bars and pubs without creating unacceptable noise levels.
Westminster Council estimates that about 20% of the waste generated at night by the hospitality industry is glass.
Councillor Paul Dimoldenberg, Cabinet Member for City Management and Air Quality, commented: “We are working closely with the West End hospitality industry to help them segregate their food, glass and cardboard so that they can be collected separately.
“Finding a way to collect glass waste at night is proving more difficult, because of the noise impact of loading bottles into the refuse vehicles, but we are looking at different options and working with the hospitality industry to find practical solutions.”
