20 days until digital waste tracking is mandatoryThe guide

AATF

Approved Authorised Treatment Facility

The short answer

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.

In practice

If you collect old laptops, fridges or display screens, somewhere down the chain they reach an AATF. Approval sits on top of an ordinary environmental permit and is granted site by site by the Environment Agency, SEPA, Natural Resources Wales or the NIEA. An exporter doing the same job abroad is an Approved Exporter instead.

An evidence note is not the same thing as a certificate of destruction. Evidence notes are statutory, cover WEEE categories and tonnages, and only an approved site can issue one. A certificate of destruction is a commercial document about a specific job, and whoever did the destroying can issue it.

Where LoadSnap touches it

LoadSnap records the movement to the treatment site and the weight that arrived, and issues certificates of destruction for confidential material. It does not issue WEEE evidence notes, because only an approved facility can.

Related

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