Duty of Care & Waste Transfer Notes in Scotland

What duty of care actually means

The duty of care for waste sits in section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and applies across Scotland to anyone who produces, imports, keeps, treats or disposes of controlled waste. In plain terms, if your business creates waste, you are responsible for making sure it ends up somewhere legal — and that responsibility does not transfer to whoever picks it up.

There are three practical obligations. You must prevent the waste escaping your control. You must only transfer it to an authorised person, which in most cases means a registered waste carrier. And you must describe it accurately enough that whoever receives it can handle it properly, which matters more than it sounds when a load contains something unexpected.

Breaching the duty is a criminal offence. It is prosecuted rather than fined administratively, and the penalties are unlimited on indictment.

• It applies to everyone who produces or holds waste
• Waste may only go to an authorised person
• It must be described accurately on paper
• Transfer notes are kept for at least two years
• The duty does not end when the lorry leaves
• Breach is a criminal offence, not a civil one

What a transfer note has to contain

A waste transfer note is the evidence that the transfer happened properly. It must identify the waste, including a description and the relevant European Waste Catalogue code, state the quantity and how it was contained, and give the date, time and place of transfer. It must name both parties, and record the carrier's registration number and the authority that issued it.

Both sides sign it, and both sides keep a copy for at least two years. If you are ever asked to demonstrate compliance, the transfer notes are the demonstration. A carrier who says they will 'send it on later' and does not, or who provides one blanket note covering a year of collections, has not given you what the law requires.

A season ticket — one note covering multiple collections of the same waste from the same place — is permitted, but only where the description genuinely does not change. It is a convenience for regular identical uplifts, not a way to avoid documenting anything.

Transfer notes versus consignment notes

Ordinary controlled waste moves on a transfer note. Special waste — Scotland's term for what the rest of the UK calls hazardous waste — moves on a consignment note (the paperwork hazardous waste travels on) instead, which is a heavier document that has to be pre-notified to SEPA before the movement takes place.

This distinction matters commercially, because it is where dishonest operators cut corners. Asbestos, clinical waste, chemicals, oils, solvents and gas cylinders all require a carrier authorised for special waste and the consignment paperwork that goes with it. If somebody offers to take any of those on an ordinary transfer note, that is a clear signal to stop.

We are registered for general and non-hazardous waste, so we issue transfer notes and say so plainly. Our hazardous and special waste page sets out exactly what falls outside our scope and where each stream should go instead.

Checking who you hand waste to

Because the duty stays with you, checking the carrier is part of the duty rather than an optional extra. SEPA maintains a public register of waste carriers and brokers, and looking a firm up on it takes under a minute. You want the registration number, and you want the name on the registration to match the name on the invoice.

This is the single most common failure we see, and it is what leads to householders and small businesses receiving fixed penalties after their waste is found fly-tipped with paperwork in it. The person who dumped it is long gone; the address in the boxes is not. There is more on that in our guide to fly-tipping dangers in Glasgow.

For the record, ours is WCR/R/3002381, we have traded since 2010 and company number SC516270. Every collection comes with a transfer note whether you ask for one or not, and you can see how the commercial side works on our commercial waste collection page.

Making it manageable in practice

For a small business the whole duty comes down to a habit rather than a system. Get a transfer note every time, file it somewhere you will find it in two years, and check the carrier once when you first use them. That is genuinely all of it, and it takes minutes rather than hours.

The failure we see most often is not refusal but drift. A business checks a carrier properly at the start, then stops receiving notes six months in and never notices, because nothing visibly goes wrong until something does. A five-minute review once a year — are the notes still arriving, is the registration still current, does the name still match — closes that gap entirely.

For businesses that need more than the minimum, ask your carrier for a periodic summary rather than loose notes. We provide one covering the period alongside diversion figures for anybody reporting under ISO 14001 or answering a tender question, and it makes an audit considerably less painful than a shoebox does.