GuidesEngland
Recycling records for nurseries and schools
Last reviewed 25 October 2026
Nurseries and schools in England use the same workplace streams. Meal leftovers and kitchen scraps are food waste and stay separate. Classrooms produce paper and card. Plastic, metal and glass may be collected together. There is no extra exemption in SortProof for a school: the date still follows the full-time-equivalent staff of the organisation.
Meals, paper and who counts
Meal leftovers and kitchen scraps are food waste and stay separate from classroom recycling and general waste. Classrooms produce paper and card. Plastic, metal and glass may be collected together. There is no extra exemption in these England rules for a school.
Children do not count towards the full-time-equivalent staff figure. Neither do volunteers or contractors. Use the organisation’s staff total for the date, even when a council or a contractor arranges the bins.
What to keep
Keep the contract or the written confirmation from whoever arranges the collections. Record each nursery or school as a site when the bins differ.
If the site is in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, read the guide for that nation. The streams and dates there are different. The free check on SortProof uses the England rules.
In short
- Record each nursery or school site, and note if the local authority or a contractor arranges the bins.
- Keep meal waste out of the dry recycling and the general waste.
- Keep paper and card, including classroom paper and cardboard, separate unless a written assessment is on file.
- Keep the contract or the written confirmation from whoever arranges the collections.
- Use the organisation’s workforce figure for the deadline, not the number of children.
Questions
Do children count towards the 10 FTE figure?
No. The figure is full-time-equivalent staff. Children, volunteers and contractors do not count.
Is meal waste food waste?
Yes, when the site produces it. It is kept separate from dry recycling and general waste and collected separately.
Related guides
SortProof stores the record you enter. It is guidance, not a certificate, and it is not issued by Defra or the Environment Agency.