Season tickets: when one transfer note can cover a year

If you empty the same bins at the same shop every week, you do not need a new note every week. A season ticket covers the lot for up to a year. The catch is that a season ticket quietly stops being valid the moment something changes, and most firms do not notice.

What is a season ticket?

It is a single waste transfer note that covers a series of collections instead of just one. The government's duty of care code of practice describes it as a note that "can last up to one year and be used for regular transfers of the same type of non-hazardous waste with the same carrier".

Trade bin rounds are the obvious use: a café, a pub, an office, a garage. Anywhere the same waste goes out on the same day with the same firm, week after week. It saves paper, and it saves your driver asking for a signature at the back door of a shop that is not open yet.

The conditions

Every collection the ticket covers has to match what it says. In practice that means four things:

• The same waste. The same description and the same EWC code every time. Mixed general waste is one ticket. Cardboard collected separately is another.
• The same parties. The same customer handing it over and the same carrier taking it.
• Regular, repeated collections. A weekly or fortnightly pattern, not an occasional skip when they have a clear-out.
• No more than 12 months. After that, a new ticket, signed again by both sides.

Here is what a ticket for a made-up café looks like once it is filled in. The two lines that make it a season ticket rather than an ordinary note are the period and the collection pattern.

What has to be on it

Everything a normal transfer note needs under regulation 35: the waste description and code, how it is contained, the names and addresses of both sides, the customer's SIC code, the role each side is acting in, the carrier's registration number, the waste hierarchy declaration and both signatures. Our transfer note guide goes through each one.

On top of that, a season ticket should show the start and end dates of the period it covers and how often collections happen. The code of practice also says you should keep a record of when each collection took place and how much waste was taken, so the ticket is backed by a log of every lift. Keep the ticket for at least two years. We would count those two years from the last collection it covers, so it is still there if anyone asks about that final lift.

Five things that make it invalid mid-year

1. 01The customer starts putting different waste in the bin. The café starts binning food waste in the general bin, or putting out flattened cardboard alongside it. That is no longer the waste on the ticket. Agree a new description and code, or give the new stream its own ticket.
2. 02The customer moves, or opens a second site. A move means a new place of collection, so start a new ticket. A second site can be added, as below, but only if it is the same waste with the same carrier, and it needs adding to the paperwork before the first lift there.
3. 03You hand the round to a subcontractor. A different firm is now taking the waste, so the ticket no longer describes what is happening. The subcontractor needs its own note with the customer, and you are now arranging the collection, which is broker work your registration should cover.
4. 04You start tipping somewhere else. Your load from the customer is still the same transfer, but if the ticket names where the waste goes, it is now wrong. Update it and tell the customer, because their duty of care includes knowing where their waste ends up.
5. 05The 12 months run out and nobody notices. This is the most common one. Every collection after the end date has no note behind it at all. Put the end date in the diary a month ahead, and get the new ticket signed before the old one lapses.

Season tickets and digital waste tracking

The paperwork covers a year, but the waste still arrives at the tip one load at a time. Since 1 October 2026, permitted receiving sites in England and Wales report every load they take in to DEFRA's digital waste tracking service within two working days. From October 2027 carriers are due to report their own loads too. A season ticket does not change that. Each lift is still its own record, with its own weight and date.

In LoadSnap a season ticket sits on the customer's contract, alongside the recurring collections it covers. Both sides sign it, it shows as ending soon in the last 30 days, and it will not let you set a period longer than 12 months. Contracts and season tickets come with the Business plan; see pricing.

Questions people ask

Can a season ticket cover several sites?

Yes, if every site has the same type of waste and the same carrier. The code of practice says they can be listed in a schedule to the ticket. A different waste at one of the sites needs its own ticket.

Do I need one for hazardous waste?

Season tickets are only for non-hazardous waste. Hazardous waste needs a consignment note for each movement.

LoadSnap team

UK waste compliance

Written by the team building LoadSnap, the UK waste compliance platform for carriers and receivers.