The UK waste glossary
Every term you will meet on a transfer note, a permit or a DEFRA screen, in plain English. Written for the people who move and receive waste, not for lawyers.
39 terms
AATF
Approved Authorised Treatment Facility
A site the environmental regulator has approved to treat waste electricals. Only an AATF can issue a WEEE evidence note, the document that proves electrical waste was properly treated and lets the tonnage count towards a producer's legal recycling obligation.
The same role as an AATF for electricals sent abroad for treatment. An Approved Exporter issues evidence for the exported tonnage, so it counts towards a producer's obligation just as home treatment would.
ATF
Authorised Treatment Facility, for vehicles
A permitted site that depollutes scrap vehicles and issues the DVLA Certificate of Destruction. A different scheme from an AATF, and a different certificate.
Someone who arranges for other people's waste to be moved or treated without ever handling it themselves. Brokers have to be registered with the regulator, the same as carriers.
BS EN 15713
Secure destruction of confidential material
The code of practice for shredding and destroying confidential material, revised in 2023. Naming it on a certificate tells the customer which standard the job was done to.
Whoever moves the waste. Carrying other people's waste as a business needs upper tier registration; lower tier covers a narrower set of cases, including carrying your own.
Carrier registration
The Carrier, Broker and Dealer register
The public register of everyone allowed to carry, broker or deal in waste. Anyone taking waste off you should be on it, and checking is free.
A document from whoever destroyed the material, saying what was destroyed, how much of it, by what method and when. No law defines it, which is exactly why the detail on it matters.
The site that receives a hazardous load. It has to send the regulator a quarterly return listing everything it took in.
The quarterly return a hazardous waste receiver sends the regulator, listing every consignment it accepted in the period.
Consignment note
HWCN, hazardous waste consignment note
The transfer note for hazardous waste. It carries a unique consignment code, travels with the load in parts that each party keeps, and is held for three years rather than two.
The unique reference on a hazardous consignment note, built from the producer's registration and a serial number, so one movement can be traced through everybody's records.
Whoever hands the waste over at the start of a movement. Usually the producer, sometimes a site that has been holding it.
Someone who buys and sells waste without ever taking physical possession of it. Registered with the regulator the same way a broker is.
DEFRA
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The government department that sets waste policy for England and runs the digital waste tracking service the whole UK files into.
The DEFRA service replacing paper transfer notes with a filing for every movement of waste. Receiving sites come in from 1 October 2026 and carriers from 1 October 2027.
Duty of care
Section 34, Environmental Protection Act 1990
The rule underneath all of it. Keep waste safe, hand it only to someone authorised to take it, describe it accurately, and keep the paperwork.
The waste regulator in England. SEPA covers Scotland, Natural Resources Wales covers Wales, and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency covers Northern Ireland.
The licence a site needs to store, treat or dispose of waste. It names exactly which wastes, how much at once, and what may be done to them.
Evidence note
WEEE evidence note
The statutory record of electrical waste treated and recycled, issued only by an AATF or an Approved Exporter, and used to discharge a producer's legal recycling obligation.
EWC code
European Waste Catalogue, the List of Waste
The six-digit code that classifies every waste stream, grouped into twenty chapters by the industry or process that produced it. An asterisk means hazardous.
Exemption
T, S, U and D exemptions
A waste activity small or low-risk enough to run without a full permit. It still has to be registered with the regulator and is capped by tonnage and by what it covers.
Whoever has the waste at any given moment. The duty of care follows the holder rather than whoever owns the material.
HP codes
Hazardous properties HP1 to HP15
The fifteen properties that make a waste hazardous, running from explosive and flammable through toxic and ecotoxic to HP15, a waste that can become hazardous after it has been disposed of.
What came into a site against what went out. Destroying material does not reduce what was received, because the site did receive it; the destruction is an output, not a cancellation.
A pair of EWC codes for the same material, one hazardous and one not. Which applies depends on what the waste actually contains, not on what it looks like.
MRF
Materials Recovery Facility
A permitted site that sorts mixed dry recycling into separate streams for onward sale. Pronounced 'murf'.
POPs
Persistent Organic Pollutants
Chemicals that do not break down in the environment, found in things like older upholstered seating and some plastics. Waste containing them has to be destroyed rather than recycled or landfilled.
Waste has to be treated before it can go to landfill. Sorting, separating or reducing the volume normally counts, and the site has to be able to show it happened.
Whoever's activity made the waste. They carry the duty of care first, describe the waste on the transfer note, and are named on it with their SIC code.
An organisation that buys evidence notes on behalf of the manufacturers and importers legally obliged to fund electrical recycling, so each member does not have to trade them itself.
The site that takes the waste in. Storage and treatment happen here, under a permit that says what it may hold and how much.
One waste transfer note covering repeated identical transfers between the same parties, valid for up to twelve months, so a weekly round is not twelve notes a quarter.
SIC code
Standard Industrial Classification
The code identifying the producer's trade. It is required on a transfer note and is the field most often left blank.
The rules for moving waste across a border. Notification and consent from both countries are needed before anything travels, and some wastes cannot be exported at all.
A permitted site where waste is bulked up and sorted before it moves on. A carrier who holds waste at one is acting as a receiver there too.
Prevent, reuse, recycle, recover, dispose, in that order. Everyone handling waste has to apply it and confirm on the transfer note that they did.
The duty of care record for a transfer of non-hazardous waste. It describes the waste, names both parties and their registrations, and both sides keep it for two years.
WEEE
Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment
Anything that ran on a plug or a battery, once somebody throws it out. It is collected and treated separately from ordinary waste, and the manufacturer or importer is legally obliged to fund the recycling.
Looking for a waste code rather than a word? The EWC code glossary covers all 850 entries in the List of Waste, and the code finder searches them by material.