A waste carrier licence is issued by SEPA (Scottish Environment Protection Agency) to businesses authorised to transport controlled waste. It's one of the most important things to check before hiring anyone to remove your rubbish.
What Is It?
A waste carrier licence confirms that a business has been registered with SEPA and meets the legal requirements to transport waste. There are two tiers: upper tier (for businesses that profit from transporting waste, like us) and lower tier (for businesses that transport their own waste incidentally).
Why It Matters to You
Under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, if you hand your waste to an unlicensed carrier and it gets dumped illegally, YOU can be prosecuted. The legal concept of 'duty of care' means you're responsible for checking that whoever takes your waste is authorised to do so.
How to Check
Ask the company for their waste carrier registration number. Check it on the SEPA public register (available on the SEPA website). If they can't provide a number or it doesn't check out, don't use them.
Checking a Carrier Takes About Two Minutes
Ask for the registration number, then look it up on SEPA's public register yourself rather than accepting a screenshot or a number written on a card. The register will show the registered name, the tier, and whether the registration is current, and the name it returns should match the business you're actually dealing with. A registration that has lapsed is as good as none. Do this before the van arrives rather than after, because once your waste is loaded your leverage is gone and your liability is not. Any legitimate carrier expects to be asked and will have the number to hand.
Red Flags
Cash-only operators who won't provide receipts. Prices that seem too good to be true. No company name, address, or website. Refusal to provide waste transfer notes. Unmarked vehicles with no company branding.
Waste Transfer Notes
Licensed carriers must provide a waste transfer note for every collection. This document records what was collected, where from, and where it's going. Keep it. It's your proof that you fulfilled your duty of care.
What a Waste Transfer Note Has to Contain
A note that just says 'rubbish' isn't doing its job. It should identify both parties, including the carrier's registration number, describe the waste in enough detail to be meaningful, give the quantity, and state where it was collected and where it's going. There should be a date and signatures from both sides. If what you're handed is a receipt for payment with no description of the waste and no registration number, it is not a transfer note, whatever it says at the top.
How Long Do You Need to Keep It?
Two years is the figure to work to for waste transfer notes, and businesses handling hazardous or special waste need to keep those records longer. Households doing a one-off clearance are unlikely to be asked, but landlords, builders and anyone running a business should file them properly, because the note is the only thing that proves the waste left your hands legally. Digital copies are fine, so photograph it before it gets lost in a van.
Duty of Care Is Different for Businesses
Householders have a duty to pass waste only to an authorised person. Businesses carry a heavier version of the same obligation: you must describe the waste accurately, keep the paperwork, and take reasonable steps to check where it actually ends up, not simply take a carrier's word for it. If you run a shop, a salon, an office or a building site, your trade waste is not household waste and cannot go in a domestic bin or be taken to a household recycling centre, regardless of how small the quantity is.
If Your Waste Ends Up Fly-Tipped
This is the scenario the licence exists to prevent. When fly-tipped waste is investigated, the first thing anyone does is go through it for anything with a name and address on it, and letters, parcels and paperwork routinely survive. If it traces back to you and you can't show who took it and that they were registered, the fine lands on you rather than on the man with the van who is long gone. Paying cash to an unregistered operator to save thirty pounds is how people end up with a fixed penalty for several hundred.
Our Credentials
Envirocycle Glasgow is a registered upper-tier waste carrier with SEPA. Our registration number is available on request and verifiable on the SEPA public register. Every collection includes a waste transfer note.
Envirocycle is SEPA-registered (WCR/R/3021188), and every collection comes with a waste transfer note. That covers all our local work, including waste removal in Hamilton, waste removal in Blantyre, waste removal in Uddingston and waste removal in Cambuslang.
Need help with waste removal?
Send a photo of what needs to go and we'll quote you within minutes. Same-day service available across Glasgow.