A new night-time commercial waste recycling service in the West End is increasing Westminster’s recycling rate and helping to reduce the cost of disposing with the city’s waste.
Westminster’s hugely successful West End night-time economy generates a massive amount of food waste, glass and cardboard which, until this year, was collected and disposed of as general waste.
However, since February 2024 the Council and its contractor Veolia has been operating two night-time recycling rounds in Covent Garden, Soho and parts of Fitzrovia and Victoria, using quiet electric refuse vehicles, where 50 tonnes of mixed recycling and carboard is collected every week from businesses.
And in October 2024, the Council started collecting food waste at night from restaurants, bars, pubs and hotels. The food waste is taken to an anerobic digester in Hertfordshire where it is turned into biogas (which generates electricity) and biofertilizer for local farmland. The Council estimates that about a third of the waste generated at night by the hospitality industry is food waste.
Since February 2024, the Council has collected an additional 1,650 tonnes of mixed recycling through the new night-time recycling service, equivalent to an additional 1% on the Council’s waste recycling rate.
The Council is now looking at how the huge amount of waste glass generated at night by restaurants, bars and pubs can be successfully collected at night without creating unacceptable noise levels for the thousands of West End residents who live above or adjacent to hospitality venues. The 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, said:
“We are committed to increasing commercial waste recycling and diverting more waste away from incineration which will reduce costs to the Council and make it easier for businesses to become more sustainable. 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.”
“Westminster is at the heart of London, the greatest city in the world, and the Council aims to deliver first-class public services 24/7, 365 days a year.”
“Thousands of West End residents are able to sleep soundly as the waste is collected by quiet electric refuse vehicles.”
For more information about the Council’s fleet of electric refuse vehicles see