Waste Duty of Care: The Checks Before You Hand Waste Over

The waste duty of care is the rare obligation with no financial ceiling and no way to contract out of it. It binds the business that produces the waste, the one that moves it and the one that arranges the collection, each separately — and it expects the producer to have checked the other two before anything leaves the yard.

What is the waste duty of care, and who does it bind?

The duty of care is set out in section 34(1) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. It binds anyone who imports, produces, carries, keeps, treats, disposes of, or — as a dealer or broker — has control of controlled waste in England or Wales.

That list is wider than most businesses assume. It catches 5 distinct positions in a single collection — the office that fills the skip, the laboratory that produces a chemical residue, the haulier that moves it, the broker that arranges the collection and the site that treats it. Each is separately liable for its own part, and the Environment Agency can pursue any of them.

The statutory code of practice is issued under section 34(7) of the same Act and was presented to Parliament under section 34(9). It is not advisory material: the code is admissible as evidence in legal proceedings for a section 34(1) offence, and its rules must be taken into account where relevant to questions raised in the case.

What does non-compliance actually cost?

There is no ceiling. Failure to comply with the duty of care is an offence with no upper limit on the courts' power to fine. In some instances a fixed penalty notice may be issued for failure to comply, in place of prosecution.

That unlimited exposure is the reason this duty is treated differently from ordinary commercial risk. A business cannot cap it by contract, cannot transfer it to its carrier, and cannot discharge it by paying someone to take the problem away. What it can do is evidence that it took the steps the code describes.

If your waste activities are authorised or registered in Scotland or Northern Ireland but you deal with waste in England or Wales, you still have to follow this code. Operating across borders means following Scotland's and Northern Ireland's codes of practice alongside it, not instead of it.

Are you a waste producer without realising it?

Probably, if you run any premises at all. Waste producers include private sector businesses such as shops, offices, factories and tradespeople — electricians, builders, glaziers, plumbers — as well as public sector services such as schools, hospitals and prisons, and charities, voluntary and community groups.

There is also a less obvious route in. If you carry out a waste operation that changes the nature or composition of the waste, you are regarded as a producer of that waste even if you did not generate it. Sorting, crushing, decanting or dismantling can all have that effect.

The code notes why producers carry particular weight in the chain: they are in the best position to identify the nature and characteristics of the waste. Nobody downstream can classify it as well as the business that made it, which is why the classification obligation sits where it does.

Permitted operations and exempt facilities that produce waste as part of their own activities are producers too. So a business already holding an environmental permit does not escape the producer duties for the waste its permitted activity generates — it holds both sets at once, and the Environment Agency inspects against both.

What does the code expect you to do before a collection?

Four checks, and the second is the one with teeth.

1. Step 1 — classify the waste, so you know whether it is hazardous and which codes describe it.
2. Step 2 — check that your waste carrier is registered and that the receiving site holds an environmental permit. Use authorised businesses only.
3. Step 3 — separate and store the waste safely while it is on your premises.
4. Step 4 — complete the correct document: a waste transfer note for non-hazardous controlled waste, or a hazardous waste consignment note where the waste is hazardous.

Step 2 is the step businesses skip, and it is checkable in minutes. The Environment Agency publishes a register of waste carriers, brokers and dealers; a registration number returns a record showing the tier, the roles held and the expiry date. A carrier that cannot give you a number is a carrier you cannot lawfully use.

What is the difference between upper tier and lower tier registration?

Tier reflects what the business does rather than how big it is. Upper tier registration is required where waste handling is a business activity in its own right — carrying other people's waste, or brokering and dealing in it — and it carries a 3 year term with a renewal obligation.

The broker and dealer roles matter commercially more than they sound. A managed collection where the waste is treated at someone else's permitted facility is a brokering activity, so a business offering that service needs the broker role on its registration and not only the carrier role. Checking which roles appear against a number is therefore more informative than checking that a number exists.

Does the duty of care apply to household waste?

Not in the same way. Occupiers of domestic property disposing of household waste from that property are exempt from the section 34(1) duty and instead have a separate duty under section 34(2A), with non-statutory guidance at the end of the code.

The distinction catches people out in two directions. A householder paying a van to clear a garage is still expected to take reasonable steps under section 34(2A) — fly-tipped household waste traced back to the householder is the classic case. And a business operating from a domestic property is not a householder for this purpose: its trade waste falls under section 34(1) in full.

Where the clearance is a commercial job, the commercial duty applies to the business doing it regardless of where the waste came from. See documented chain of custody for how that evidence trail is built on an IT disposal, which is the case where the data obligation sits on top of the waste one.

What does "authorised business" mean in practice?

Two separate checks, not one. The carrier must be registered with the Environment Agency, and the destination site must hold an environmental permit. A registered carrier taking waste to an unpermitted site satisfies neither limb, and so does a permitted site receiving waste from an unregistered carrier.

Both are verifiable before a vehicle is booked. Registrations are searchable by number on the public register, and the roles held against a number tell you whether the business can lawfully do the job you are asking of it. The whole check takes a couple of minutes and is the single highest-value thing a producer can do.

Keep the evidence of having made it. A screenshot or a note of the registration number and date checked is what converts a sensible decision into a defensible one, and it costs nothing at the point of doing it.

How long do the records have to be kept?

It depends on the role and on whether the waste was hazardous. For hazardous waste the producer or holder keeps a register for 3 years at the premises that produced or stored the waste, while the carrier keeps its own for one year at head office. A dealer or broker must obtain copies of the producer's records and keep those for 3 years.

The register is more than the notes themselves. It includes consignee returns from the sites that took hazardous waste, carrier schedules where more than one carrier was involved, and records of rejected loads. Where a document is incomplete, the code expects a record of what is missing rather than a quiet filing of the gap.

That last point is the difference between a defensible file and an indefensible one. An auditor finding a noted gap sees a business that was paying attention; an auditor finding an unexplained gap sees one that was not.

How can you check T&C Logistics before handing over waste?

Search CBDU654368 on the Environment Agency's public register of waste carriers and brokers. The record returns T&C Logistics Ltd as an upper tier waste carrier, broker and dealer, registered 20 August 2026 and valid to 20 August 2029.

All three roles are held, which matters for the reason set out above: a managed collection with treatment at a partner-operated permitted facility is a brokering activity as well as a carrying one. We carry the waste; we do not treat it ourselves, and the treatment happens at a permitted facility operated by a partner.

Where the waste is also ADR-regulated in transit we hold ADR competence across classes 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 9 — not class 1 explosives and not class 7 radioactives. Items with a waste leg are covered on car batteries, e-bike batteries and tyres. Give us the waste codes and the site and we will confirm what we can lawfully move and where it can go.