Restaurant sustainability: UK rules, real numbers and a monthly worksheet

Restaurant sustainability means running a restaurant so it wastes less food, energy, water and packaging, buys from suppliers who farm and fish responsibly, and treats its team fairly. In the UK it also means following a set of waste, plastics and drinks-container laws that differ by nation, so start with what the law requires and then measure everything else monthly.

TL;DR

• Food waste is the biggest lever. WRAP puts UK hospitality and food service food waste at 800,000 tonnes in 2021, worth £3.21 billion.
• The law already requires most restaurants to separate food waste and recyclables, and bans or restricts several single-use plastic items. The rules differ in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and the table below shows which apply to you.
• Track four numbers every month: food waste per cover, its value, energy per cover and your recycling rate. The worksheet near the end shows how.
• Any "eco" or "sustainable" claim on your menu has to meet the CMA's Green Claims Code.

What does restaurant sustainability cover?

The Sustainable Restaurant Association describes its Food Made Good Standard as "the world's largest sustainability certification tailored for the sector". Its 2025 Standard, as published in the University of Glasgow's assessment report, splits the work into three pillars and 10 impact areas:

So fair pay, staff wellbeing and responsible drinking sit in the same framework as carbon and food waste. UKHospitality's Environmental Sustainability Guide for SMEs (dated October 2022 on its contents page) covers the environmental side under five headings: energy, skills, supply chain, waste and biodiversity.

Two related ideas sit at the edges of the definition. Carbon offsetting is one optional step at the end of a plan, after you've cut what you can. And a green claim on a menu board is marketing, which has its own rules (see the section on green claims below).

Why does it matter for a restaurant?

Mostly because waste costs money. These are the figures from primary reports, with their dates.

The WRAP per-meal cost is in 2011 prices, so treat it as a floor. Most of the waste still happens before the plate goes out, which means it's within your kitchen's control.

What UK law says about restaurant sustainability

Several separate laws apply to restaurants, and most of them are about waste.

Which rules apply to my site?

The sections below give the detail and the source for each row.

Separating waste for recycling

England. Under Defra's Simpler Recycling guidance for workplaces (last updated 3 October 2025), restaurants must separate dry recyclables, food waste and non-recyclable waste before collection. The rules came into force on 31 March 2025. Micro-firms with fewer than 10 full-time equivalent employees have until 31 March 2027, and contractors, self-employed workers and volunteers don't count towards the total. Food waste has to be collected "no matter how little food waste you have", and the guidance says you shouldn't ask staff to take it home. Defra's announcement on 31 March 2025 confirms that the Environment Agency is the regulator.

Wales. The Waste Separation Requirements (Wales) Regulations 2023 "come into force on 6 April 2024" and name Natural Resources Wales as the regulator. The Welsh Government's workplace recycling page lists the streams you must keep apart: food (if you produce more than 5kg a week), paper and card, glass, and metals, plastic and cartons mixed together, plus unsold textiles and small electricals. From 6 April 2026, all small waste electricals with a plug, battery or cable must also be kept separate.

Schedule 2 to the Regulations sets fixed penalties. If you put your waste out for collection unsorted, that breaks section 45AA(4) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, and the penalty is £300. The £500 penalty is for breaches of section 45AA(2), which covers businesses that collect, keep, treat or transport the waste, so that one is aimed at your waste contractor. Before any penalty, NRW must serve a "notice of intent", and you can discharge it "by paying 50% of the penalty within 28 days".

Food waste can't go down the sink either. Section 34D of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 says an occupier of premises in Wales must not discharge food waste "into a public sewer or a sewer or drain communicating with a public sewer". The Prohibition on Disposal of Food Waste to Sewer (Civil Sanctions) (Wales) Order 2023 also came into force on 6 April 2024. It makes your local authority the regulator and sets a fixed penalty of £300, with the same 50% discount for paying within 28 days of a notice of intent. The Welsh Government's guide to separated waste collections for workplaces confirms that NRW enforces the separation rules and that "Local Authorities (LAs) regulate the ban on the disposal of food waste to sewer from non-domestic premises".

Scotland. The duties come from the Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012, which made dry recycling and food waste separation a duty "from 1st January 2014", and extended it to businesses producing as little as 5kg of food waste a week "on or after 1st January 2016". SEPA's guidance on recycling and food waste for business says all businesses must present glass, metals, plastics, paper and cardboard for separate collection. A food business that "consistently produced 5 kg or more food waste a week" must also separate its food waste, unless it's in an area defined as rural. SEPA says 5kg is "roughly equivalent to a full domestic kitchen caddy". Section 34(2K) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, inserted for Scotland by regulation 2 of the same Regulations, has banned putting food waste into a public drain or sewer since 1 January 2016, again except in rural areas.

Northern Ireland. Regulation 2 of the Food Waste Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2015 requires a food business producing 5kg or more of food waste a week to take reasonable steps to have it collected separately, "from 1st April 2016". From 1 April 2017 a business must also "ensure that food waste is not deposited in a lateral drain or public sewer".

Single-use plastics

England. GOV.UK's single-use plastics bans and restrictions guidance lists four banned items: drinks stirrers, balloon sticks, cutlery, and expanded or extruded polystyrene food and drink containers. Plates, bowls and trays are restricted, but a restaurant can still use them as packaging, for example a plate filled at a takeaway counter or a tray used to deliver food. The bans include "biodegradable, compostable and recycled plastic" items. Straws and stirrers come under an older law, the Environmental Protection (Plastic Straws, Cotton Buds and Stirrers) (England) Regulations 2020. They were made on 10 September 2020 and came into force on the twenty-first day after, 1 October 2020. Stirrers are banned outright. For straws, regulation 6 lets a restaurant supply one with food or drink for immediate consumption, as long as straws are not "kept in a place where they are visible to customers" and are not "offered or provided to a customer unless the customer has requested them". The Environmental Protection (Plastic Plates etc. and Polystyrene Containers etc.) (England) Regulations 2023 came into force on 1 October 2023, and regulation 3(4) makes an offence punishable on summary conviction "to a fine".

Wales. The Environmental Protection (Single-use Plastic Products) (Wales) Act 2023 schedule lists the banned products. For a restaurant the main ones are cups and takeaway containers made of expanded or foamed extruded polystyrene, polystyrene lids, cutlery, drink stirrers, plates and straws, with health and disability exemptions for straws. Section 6 of the Act makes the offence punishable by a fine on summary conviction, and it came into force on 30 October 2023.

Scotland. Regulation 3 of the Environmental Protection (Single-use Plastic Products) (Scotland) Regulations 2021 bans single-use expanded polystyrene drinks containers, cups and food containers, and single-use plastic stirrers, cutlery and plates. The penalty is a fine of up to level 5 on the standard scale. The Regulations came into force on 1 June 2022.

Northern Ireland. We found no Northern Ireland Statutory Rule banning single-use plastic straws, stirrers, cutlery, plates or polystyrene food containers. The Northern Ireland rules we did find cover carrier bags, vapes and wet wipes.

The Deposit Return Scheme

England and Northern Ireland. From 1 October 2027, drinks in single-use containers of 150ml to 3 litres will carry a refundable 20p deposit. GOV.UK's Deposit Return Scheme guidance for England and Northern Ireland says that if you sell drinks for consumption on the premises "you can choose not to charge the deposit at the point of sale". If you opt out, you keep the empty containers for collection and display a notice saying you're an opt-out premises. Drinks sold to take away carry the deposit.

Scotland. The Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland Amendment Regulations 2025 move the start date to "1 October 2027". The policy note to the 2025 Regulations says "Glass bottles have been removed from the scope of the scheme", and that "hospitality retailers are not required to charge a deposit for scheme articles which are consumed on the premises".

Wales. The Deposit Scheme for Drinks Containers (Wales) Regulations 2026 "come into force on 1 October 2027" for most purposes. Glass is in the scheme, but regulation 3 sets "the amount of the deposit in respect of a glass deposit item" at "0 pence" during a transitional period "beginning with 1 October 2027 and ending with 30 September 2031". For drinks you sell to drink on the spot, regulation 29(2) lets a supplier at "on-sale premises" decide not to charge a deposit (an "opt-out decision"). Under regulation 30 you then display a notice saying you don't charge the deposit, and ask customers not to take empty containers away. The Welsh Government's written statement of 12 February 2026 says glass bottles will be "collected from the outset" with "a zero‑pence deposit" for four years.

Free tap water

If you hold an alcohol licence in England or Wales, paragraph 2 of the Schedule to the Licensing Act 2003 (Mandatory Licensing Conditions) Order 2010 says "free potable water is provided on request to customers where it is reasonably available". The Order brought the rule in on 6 April 2010. In Scotland, paragraph 9(2) of Schedule 3 to the Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005 says "Tap water fit for drinking must be provided free of charge on request", where the licence allows alcohol to be drunk on the premises. It's been in force since 1 February 2008, two years before England and Wales. In Northern Ireland we found no law requiring licensed premises to give tap water free. Serving tap water in a jug is the cheapest packaging cut you'll make.

Waste duty of care and records

In England and Wales, every business that produces waste has a duty of care under section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. GOV.UK's guide to disposing of business waste says you must complete a waste transfer note for each load that leaves your premises and check that your waste carrier is registered. Regulation 3 of the Environmental Protection (Duty of Care) Regulations 1991 requires both you and the carrier to keep the transfer note "for a period of two years".

Catering waste can't go to animals

Some operators give kitchen scraps to a farmer for pigs or chickens. One commenter in an r/restaurateur thread on composting describes doing exactly that, "to a farmer who fed chickens with the waste". In the UK it's illegal. Defra and APHA's guidance on supplying animal by-products as farm animal feed says: "There is a complete ban on using any household kitchen waste and from catering waste containing products of animal origin." It adds that the ban includes catering waste from "restaurants and commercial kitchens including those that produce vegan food".

Green claims on your menu

If you call a dish, a supplier or the restaurant "eco", "sustainable" or "carbon neutral", the CMA's Green Claims Code applies. Its six principles are that claims must be truthful and accurate, clear and unambiguous, must not omit or hide important information, must make fair and meaningful comparisons, must consider the full life cycle, and must be substantiated. Take "our packaging is compostable". Before you print it, check where the packaging ends up, because in England Simpler Recycling says compostable packaging can't go in the food waste bin.

Who is responsible, by role

UKHospitality's guide recommends starting with "in-house sustainability champions" and says engaging chefs "should be a top priority", because they set the agenda for the rest of the team.

How to build a restaurant sustainability plan

1. Check the law first. Use the table above. If your waste contract doesn't separate food waste and recyclables, fix that before anything else.
2. Take a four-week baseline. UKHospitality's guide suggests tracking for "a 4-week period" if you don't already have data. Weigh food waste by type (prep, spoilage, plate), read the electricity and gas meters weekly, and collect your waste invoices.
3. Do a bin audit. Look in the general waste bin and list what's in it, using the template in UKHospitality's guide. If you find food or clean recyclables in there, your separation isn't working yet.
4. Pick three targets: one for food waste, one for energy and one for packaging. Keep them in your own units (kg per cover, kWh per cover) so a busy month doesn't hide progress.
5. Brief the team at the next restaurant manager meeting and put the figures where your kitchen team will see them every shift.
6. Review monthly with the worksheet below, and change one thing at a time so you can see what worked.

Cutting food waste

Most food waste happens before service, so start in the kitchen.

• Prep waste (45% of the sector's food waste). Check yields on your highest-volume dishes. If the trim on one dish is high, either change the spec or use the trim. Your menu engineering review is the place to drop dishes that sell slowly and spoil.
• Spoilage (21%). Tighten ordering and stock rotation. A weekly stock count shows you what's sitting too long.
• Plate waste (34%). Note what comes back. UKHospitality's guide passes on the UK SME Climate Hub's suggestion to offer and label smaller portions, and to look at plate sizes.

Every kilo you don't waste shows up directly in your food cost percentage. For surplus that's still safe to eat, UKHospitality's guide points to discount apps such as Too Good To Go and redistribution services such as OLIO. WRAP's Key Facts show hospitality accounts for only 7% of redistributed surplus food, so there's room to do more.

Energy and water

ReLondon's energy guide says a food business can cut its energy use "by up to 20%" with moderate efficiency improvements, and that in some kitchens "as little as 40% of the energy consumed is used for the preparation and storage of food". It recommends a simple switch-off policy, because kitchen equipment is often turned on at the start of a shift and left running all day.

Start with the cheap habits.

• A start-up and switch-off schedule for each piece of kitchen equipment, built into your kitchen closing checklist.
• Weekly meter readings, so you can see the effect.
• Fridge and freezer door seals and condenser coils checked as part of planned maintenance.
• Dishwashers run only when full.

Bigger steps come when equipment needs replacing. The SRA and Integrate to Zero renewable energy toolkit calls switching to a renewable tariff "the easiest action, with no upfront costs", and recommends designing new sites around induction cooking. Check that a tariff covers 100% of your supply from renewables, as the toolkit advises, rather than partly offsetting fossil fuel.

For water, UKHospitality's guide points to Waterwise's online training course on water efficiency. Running the dishwasher only when it's full and fixing leaks are the habits to build first.

For fats, oil and grease, Simpler Recycling allows small amounts to go in with food waste and larger amounts to go through a used cooking oil collection. Pouring it down the drain can end in court. In England and Wales, section 111 of the Water Industry Act 1991 makes it an offence to put into a public sewer "any matter likely to injure the sewer or drain, to interfere with the free flow of its contents". Water companies have used it against takeaways and restaurants:

• Severn Trent says Saffron Cottage in Ford, Shrewsbury was ordered to pay "a total fine of £9,266, including costs", after it ignored letters "asking for grease traps to be installed".
• Severn Trent says Food Express on Mansfield Road, Nottingham was ordered on 18 January 2019 "to pay a total fine of £8,419", including costs and a victim surcharge.
• Thames Water says China Panda in Fulham was prosecuted on 25 April 2025 and expected "to pay a combined total of £13,090 in fines and costs". Thames Water says it had been trying to get the takeaway to change "since 2018".

All three followed repeated visits or letters from the water company. On the Shrewsbury case, Severn Trent said "simply installing a small grease trap could have prevented the situation".

Packaging and single-use items

Start with what's banned in your nation (see above), then work through what's left with your suppliers. UKHospitality's guide includes a packaging audit template and a supplier sustainability survey. Ask your main suppliers to take back crates and outer packaging, and switch takeaway packaging to items your local collector accepts. Remember that "compostable" packaging goes in general waste in England unless you've arranged a dedicated collection.

Sourcing and the menu

The Food Made Good sourcing pillar covers seasonality, local sourcing, traceability, plant-rich dishes and sustainable seafood. UKHospitality suggests starting with 10% of the menu rather than overhauling it all at once, and ruling out fish on the Marine Conservation Society's list of species to avoid. Keep your approved supplier list as the place you record which suppliers meet which standard.

Myths and common mistakes

Records to keep

• Waste transfer notes for every waste stream, kept for two years.
• Your waste carrier's registration check.
• The monthly worksheet below and the four-week baseline.
• Supplier certifications for any claim you make about sourcing, such as MSC or free range.
• Evidence behind any green claim on your menu, website or social media.
• From 2027, your DRS opt-out notice and container collection records.

What's changing

Your monthly restaurant sustainability worksheet

Fill this in on the first working day of each month. The numbers in the example are made up for a restaurant serving 4,000 covers a month.

Compare each line with the same month last year and with last month. S4 uses a 2011 price, so treat it as a rough guide. If you know what you pay per kilo for the food you buy, use that instead. Add S3, S7 and S10 to your restaurant KPIs dashboard.

If you'd rather not run this on paper, Pilla can schedule the monthly worksheet and the closing switch-off check and keep the records in one place.

Frequently asked questions

Can we compost food waste on site instead?

In England, yes. Defra's Simpler Recycling guidance says on-site composting is a permitted alternative to food waste collection, as long as you follow the rules on composting material with animal content. It also says most workplaces are unlikely to be able to compost all of their organic waste effectively, so you will probably still need a collection.

What's the most sustainable thing a small restaurant can do first?

Measure food waste for four weeks. It's cheap, it uses kit you already have, and it shows you which of prep, spoilage or plate waste to work on.

Are paper straws required?

No. In England you can still supply plastic straws on request with food and drink for immediate consumption, as long as you don't display or offer them. You can still switch to paper or reusable straws if you'd rather not keep plastic ones at all.

Is there a certification for sustainable restaurants?

The Sustainable Restaurant Association's Food Made Good Standard is the sector-specific one. It scores you across the 10 impact areas in the table near the top of this page.