Business Recycling Directory Help

Our recycling directory is an online search tool designed to help you quickly and easily find recycling companies and centres which will collect or accept waste from businesses operating in Scotland.

You can perform searches using the Quick Search facility on the home page or the Advanced Search facility on the recycling directory page. Whichever facility you use, all searches are performed for either collection OR centre services.

Click on the titles to expand the sections then click again to hide them.

Glossary

Collection services - these are waste uplift services provided by recycling companies or local authorities. Receptacles for waste may or may not be provided and collection may be from your premises or a designated pick-up point. Wherever possible we detail this information in your search results to help you decide on a service provider. We always supply the contact details.

Centre services - these are fixed sites for waste delivery provided and run by local authorities. Businesses may be able to deliver waste freely or may have to buy a permit to do so. This information will always be detailed in your search results.

Local Areas - The local areas offered for selection are the 32 Scottish Local Authority areas. In the Advanced search there is also the option of selecting 'National' to find recycling collection companies which operate throughout Scotland.

Quick Search

Overview

The Quick Search allows you to perfom a basic search for collections or centres in one local authority area for one material. Because the form pre-filters the materials you can choose to those which are available by your service type and local area choices, you won't have to waste time performing and waiting for a search which will not yield results.

Instructions

First choose your service type, either collections or centres, then choose a local area. The drop-down list of materials will then be populated with the materials accepted in that area by that service type and become active for selection. Pick a material and click the 'search' button. You will then proceed to the results page.

If there are no materials accepted in that area, you must select another area or change service type as you cannot perform a search without being able to pick an area and a material.

Troubleshooting

Materials List
When you choose a search type (collections or centres) then an area, the form pre-filters the materials list to show only those which are accepted for your chosen service type in your chosen area. This can cause one of two situations:

Message: 'sorry there are no materials accepted in this area' - if the this message is shown in the materials drop-down list, there are no recycling centres in your chosen area, therefore no accepted materials are available for selection. This will only happen if you are searching for recycling centres in certain areas. This will never happen when when searching for recycling collections as there are collection services in all areas.

You should try searching another nearby local area for recycling centres or searching for collection services instead.
The material I am interested in isn't in the list - this is because the material you wish to recycle is not accepted by your chosen service type in your chosen area. This can happen when searching for collections or centres.

You should try changing your service type and/or area choices.

Alternatively, in either case, you could try using the Advanced Search facility to search multiple areas at once for your preferred service type and material.

Points to note about the Quick Search form:

The service type is set to search by collections by default.
If you switch your choice between collections and centres, the form will reset.
The materials drop-down list only becomes active when you select an area and will only contain materials which are accepted for collection by a service provider or delivery to centres in the chosen area.
The 'Help' button will take you to this help page.
The 'No Materials?' button will reveal a small help section with information about why there are no materials for a search and a link to this help page.
You must be able to choose an area and a material to search for results.

Advanced Search

Overview

The Advanced Search allows you to perfom a more versatile search for collections or centres in multiple local authority areas for multiple materials. There is also the option of searching for multiple materials by postcode.

When searching by local area, the form pre-filters the materials you can choose to those accepted so that you won't have to waste time performing and waiting for a search which will not yield results. Unfortunately, this filter cannot currently be performed for postcode searches so all materials are offered and it is possible to get no results when performing this type of search.

Instructions

First choose your service type, either collections or centres, then choose to search by postcode or local area.

If searching by postcode, please note that you can only search for services in one postcode area at a time and the search is not case-sensitive. Enter either the whole of the first half of the postcode, ie 'fk10', to find services in a specific part of a postal area, or just the first 2 letters, ie 'fk', to search for services in an entire postal area.

Next, click the 'Show Materials' button and, because it is not pre-filtered for postcode searches, the complete material list will appear and will not be reset if you change your postcode entry.
If searching by local area, please note that the 'National' option is pre-selected for collection searches. Simply tick the areas you are interested in (there is an 'All Areas' option at the bottom of the list), click the 'Show Materials' button and materials list will appear.

The list is pre-filtered for local area searches to show only materials accepted by your chosen service type in your chosen area(s) and will, therefore, reset if you change your area selection.

Once you have a list of materials, just tick the material(s) you wish to recycle (there is an 'All Materials' option at the bottom of the list) and click 'search'. You will then proceed to the results page.

If there are no materials accepted for the area(s) chosen in a local area search, a message will appear telling you why and you must select another area or more areas, or change service type as you cannot perform a search without being able to pick at least one area and one material.

Troubleshooting

Materials List
When you choose to search by local area then pick a search type (collections or centres) and area(s), the form pre-filters the materials list to show only those which are accepted for your chosen service type in your chosen area(s). This can cause one of two situations:

Message: 'sorry there are no materials accepted in this area' - if the this message is shown in the materials list area, there are no recycling centres in your chosen area(s), therefore no accepted materials are available for selection. This will only happen if you are searching for recycling centres in certain areas. This will never happen when when searching for recycling collections as there are collection services in all areas.

You should try searching other nearby local areas for recycling centres or searching for collection services instead.
The material I am interested in isn't in the list - this is because the material you wish to recycle is not accepted by your chosen service type in your chosen area(s). This can happen when searching for collections or centres.

You should try changing your service type and/or area choices.

Points to note about the Advanced Search form:

If you switch your choice between collections and centres, or between postcode and local area, or change you choice of areas, the materials list will reset.
The materials list only becomes active when you click the 'Show Materials' button.
For area searches, it will only contain materials which are accepted for collection by a service provider or delivery to centres in the chosen area(s).
For postcode searches it will show all materials.
The 'Help' button will take you to this help page.
You must enter a postcode or choose at least one area, and one material to search for results.

Results

Overview

The results page should first detail which area(s) you searched in and the material(s) you searched for, then list the results of your search underneath in tabular form. How long the search takes depends on how many areas and materials you chose.

Results for both recycling collection services and recycling centres are listed by area in order of the name of service provider or centre. We detail all information given to us by service providers.

Troubleshooting

No Results
Because the materials list is not pre-filtered for postcode searches it is possible to get no results for a search for certain postcode/material(s) combinations. A message will appear on the search page telling you that there are no results for your chosen search criteria and you should try again.

You could do this using only the first two letters of the postcode, trying another postcode or searching by local area instead. You could also try searching for a different service type (collections or centres).

If the area(s) and material(s) you selected are not listed before the results ('all areas' and 'all materials' searches will be listed as such) or, in the case of no results, there is not a 'no results' message, then please contact us.

Points to note about search results:

If address, telephone, website or email details are not shown it means there are none available.
When searching for collections, the details of the recycling collections you searched for will be listed just under the service provider's address details.
When searching for recycling centres, the details of the centre opening hours will be listed just under the centre's address details.
The 'Materials Accepted' list details all the materials the service (whether collection or centre) will uplift or accept for delivery by businesses and not just the material(s) you searched for.
Clicking on the 'Materials Accepted' list will pop up a description of the material from our material guide. If the item is not an active link, there is no description for it in the guide.
The 'Search Again' link will always take you to the Advanced Search facility even if you first came from the Quick Search facility on the Waste Aware Business home page.

The printable version of this page will open in a pop-up window so that you can view it.

You can then simply click on the 'print page' link to print the guide.

Islay House, Livilands Lane, Stirling, FK8 2BG
Tel: 01786 468 797 Fax: 01786 464 611