Your duty of care for household waste

• We check the collector’s waste carrier licence on the Environment Agency register before they can quote, and again every night. If it lapses, they can’t quote.
• We check their insurance, and their photo ID against a selfie.
• When they collect, they record their van’s registration and the licensed site your waste is going to.
• Your waste transfer note is made for you when you confirm the collection, and kept in your account.
• We pay the collector only once we’ve reviewed proof that your waste got to that site.
• If your waste is ever fly-tipped anyway, we’ll report the collector to the Environment Agency and the council, and cover any fine. Here’s how that works.

You post the job, pick a quote and confirm once it’s gone. The rest is on us.

Section 34(2A) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 says that if you live in England, you must take reasonable steps to make sure your household waste only goes to someone allowed to take it: the council, or a business registered with the Environment Agency.

If your waste is found dumped and traced back to you, the council can give you a fixed penalty of up to £600. Each council sets its own amount, from £150.

It happens a lot. Councils in England dealt with 1.26 million fly-tips in 2024/25, and 62% of them involved household waste.

You’d need to do the checks on your own:

• Look up their licence on the Environment Agency register. Our free checker does it in seconds.
• Write down their name, phone number and van registration.
• Ask where your waste is going, and get a receipt or a waste transfer note.
• Keep it all, in case the council ever asks.
• Steer clear of cash-only “we’ll take anything” offers.

Through scrapmarket, every one of those is done for you.

Not by law, for your own household waste: the government’s code of practice says the transfer note rules don’t apply to it. A note is still the best proof of where your waste went. On scrapmarket you get one on every job. Waste transfer notes explained.