Digital waste tracking: the mandate, explained.

Digital waste tracking (DWT) is DEFRA's new national service for recording waste movements. Today, the same load of waste is described on a paper waste transfer note kept by the producer, another copy kept by the carrier, and a third by the receiving site - three filing cabinets, no shared record, and no way for a regulator to see a movement until long after it happened. Hazardous waste adds a multi-part consignment note on top.

The new service replaces that with one digital record per movement, created in the tracking system and confirmed with a unique record number. It also succeeds edoc, the Environment Agency's earlier electronic duty of care system, which has been closed down. The scope covers the whole chain: producers whose waste is collected, carriers who move it, brokers and dealers who arrange it, and the receiving sites where it ends up. Receiving sites go first; the rest of the chain follows in phases.

The rules land in that order deliberately. Around 12,000 permitted receiving sites are the pinch point every load must pass through, so mandating them first puts a digital record against most of the UK's waste from day one. DEFRA's own guidance on gov.uk is the primary source for the rollout and is worth bookmarking.

Registration and DWT codes. A receiving site registers with DEFRA, its details are matched to its environmental permit, and DEFRA issues it a unique API identifier - the DWT code - per site, not per company. That code is what ties the site's submissions to the service. We've written a step-by-step walkthrough of getting your DWT code.

Records and receipts. When a load arrives, the site creates a digital waste record: what the waste is (EWC code and description), how much, who brought it, and where it came from. The regulations require the record to be completed by the end of the second working day after the load is received, and the service confirms each entry with a unique digital waste record number - your receipt, and your evidence at audit.

Software. The service is built around an API rather than manual data entry, so for most operators compliance means software that speaks it. DEFRA publishes a register of software providers on gov.uk whose connections have passed its production approval tests. LoadSnap is on that register under Webhero, having passed all 11 test scenarios with no exemptions - here's what that register does and doesn't tell you. DEFRA has also described an alternative route for digitally excluded operators, but it is the exception, not the plan to rely on.