Digital waste tracking in October 2027
The government has said that recording waste movements digitally becomes mandatory across the United Kingdom in October 2027. Paper transfer notes stop being the record.
What is changing
Today a movement of waste is evidenced by a transfer note held by each party, in whatever form they keep it. Under digital waste tracking, the movement is recorded in a single national service, and the record is created as the waste moves rather than reconstructed afterwards.
The duty itself does not change. Section 34 still puts responsibility on the business that produced the waste, and a carrier still has to be registered. What changes is that the evidence becomes visible to the regulator without anyone asking for a file.
Who it affects
Anyone who produces, carries, brokers, receives or disposes of waste in the course of business. For a waste tyre collector that means every load, from a two-tyre pickup at a small garage upwards.
What a one-van operator actually needs
A current registration, a way of recording each movement at the point it happens, and a receiving site that is permitted or exempt to take what you bring it. Records made on a phone at the kerbside are the intended shape of this, not a back-office system.
The detailed technical requirements and the software available to meet them are published by Defra and the environment regulators, and they are still being finalised. Anything stated here beyond the published position would be guesswork, so it is not stated.
Why it matters to a collector today
Tracked movements make the gap between a collector who processes tyres properly and one who does not considerably harder to hide. If you are the first kind, this is the change that finally shows it.