West Sussex Waste Partnership

WSWP serve around 400,000 households in West Sussex, with a recycling rate of 53.7%, collecting over 370,000 tonnes of household waste, around 84,000 of which comes through our Recycling Centres.

The WSWP work together to:

  • provide the most effective and efficient service possible for residents
  • increase the recycling rate
  • reduce the recycling contamination rate
  • reduce the volume of residual waste per household
  • reduce the costs of waste collection and disposal
  • provide clear and consistent communication
  • encourage behaviour change.

The district and borough councils are the Waste Collection Authorities (WCA), and are responsible for collecting the recycling and waste from properties in their areas.

WSCC are the Waste Disposal Authority (WDA) and are responsible for managing the disposal of all recycling and waste collected across the county, and the 11 Recycling Centres. WSCC also, alongside the contractor Biffa, manage one Materials Recycling Facility and a Mechanical Biological Treatment plant in West Sussex.

The waste collection authorities all collect a core set of materials for mixed dry recycling, some have individual add-on collections such as Podback, small WEEE and textiles collections.

You can find out more about these on their websites below.

Simpler Recycling

The Government has now announced its plans for every council in England to collect a core set of materials for recycling. Originally outlined in its 2018 Resource and Waste Strategy (RAWS), the scheme, formerly known as ‘Consistency in Collections’, is now called ‘Simpler Recycling’.

Under the new Simpler Recycling rules every local authority will need to collect the same materials for recycling. This includes:

  • paper and card
  • plastic bottles, pots tubs and trays
  • metal food and drinks cans
  • aluminium foil
  • glass bottles and jars
  • cartons
  • food waste (due April 2026)
  • plastic film (due April 2027)
  • garden waste (either with or without a subscription service).

Local authorities have been given some flexibility as to how they collect these materials and run their services.

The majority of these materials are currently collected in West Sussex, with the exception of food waste and plastic film, and the West Sussex Waste Partnership (WSWP) is now working to determine how the required changes can best be delivered.

WSWP are working together to facilitate these changes and will continue to work in partnership to deliver quality recycling and waste services and provide the most effective and efficient service possible for our residents.

The Government has now published its responses to all consultations related to its 2018 Resource and Waste Strategy. This means the WSWP now has the necessary information to consider how any required changes can best be delivered across West Sussex, balancing our commitment to quality public services and sound public finance.

You can find more information on both the RAWS and the consultations below.

Further updates will be provided in due course.

Government consultations

The Government consultations (now closed):

Consultations responses provided by the Government: