Moving off the duplicate book, and what happens to the one you've got

A paper waste transfer note (the record of one load of waste changing hands, which both sides have to keep) is a lawful record today. A well-kept duplicate book does what the law asks of it, and nobody should tell you otherwise to sell you software.

What changes is Digital Waste Tracking, DEFRA’s national online record of every waste movement. Carriers, brokers, and dealers have to record their movements in it from October 2027, and from then a paper note on its own won’t be enough. The sites you tip at come in first, from October 2026 in England and Wales and January 2027 in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Every date is on the key dates page.

There are everyday reasons as well. A note written in a cab in the rain can be hard to read a year later, and the copies you keep have to live somewhere you can find them when your regulator asks. A note made on a phone is typed, and it’s checked for gaps before it’s saved. The office can search every one of them.

1. Set the company up once. When you sign up, your company name, address, and carrier registration can be filled in from the Environment Agency’s public register. If it can’t find you, you type them in once, and the guided setup puts your registration on every note after that.
2. Save what you write out every time. Your regular customers, your vehicles, and the sites you tip at go in once, and after that the driver picks them from a list.
3. Fill the note in on the phone at the collection. The driver searches for the EWC code (the six-digit European Waste Catalogue number that says what a waste is) as they type, and the note is checked for missing details before it’s saved. It works with no signal, and the note uploads once the phone reconnects to its network.
4. Get it signed on the screen. The customer signs with a finger before the van moves. If they’re not there, they get a link and sign on their own phone. Their copy is a PDF of the note, which you can print or have emailed to them when it’s finished.

The setup guide walks through each of these a screen at a time.

It stays where it is. Every note in your old books is still a valid record of the load it describes, and you keep each one for at least 2 years from the date of the transfer, the same as now. That rule comes from the duty of care, the legal duty on anyone who handles waste to look after it and keep a record of where it went. In England and Wales the duty is set by the Environmental Protection Act 1990. Scotland adds regulations of its own, and Northern Ireland has its own law. Hazardous waste consignment notes (the fuller form a hazardous load travels with) come under separate hazardous waste rules and are kept for at least 3 years.

You don’t have to type the old notes up or scan them. Somewhere dry that you can find them in is all the law asks.

If you’d like your history searchable next to your new notes and it’s already in a spreadsheet, you can bring it across as historic records. They’re kept and exported like any other note, but they’re never sent to DEFRA or emailed to anyone, and they count towards your plan’s monthly allowance.

You don’t have to switch everything over on a Monday morning. Put one van or one regular round on the phone first and keep the book in the other cabs. A paper note is still a lawful record while you do.

The one rule is one load, one note. Don’t write a load in the book and record it on the phone as well, because two records of the same transfer that disagree are worse than either on its own.

The free plan covers 10 waste movements a calendar month, with no card and no time limit, which is enough to try it on a few collections before you move the rest of the work across.

• Buy anything for the cab. It runs on a smartphone, so there’s nothing to fit. Put the mobile app on the driver’s phone and, once the crew are used to it, the phone can do the job of the paper book.
• Change your carrier registration. It stays as it is, with whichever regulator issued it.
• Ask your customers to open an account. They sign on your phone, or from a link on theirs, without one.
• File anything with DEFRA yet. Carrier movements are recorded to the standard DEFRA will want and ready to send the moment DEFRA opens that step. Until then a carrier with no permitted site of its own has nothing to file.

Tell us first. If something gets in the way while you’re setting up, or there’s something you don’t like, we want to hear it and we’ll help you through it. Email support@carriernote.co.uk or use the help desk in the app, and we answer within one working day.

If you still decide to go, nothing you’ve recorded is lost. Your account stays open on the free plan, and you can download any note as a PDF or export the lot at any time. Print them and file them with your paper notes, and keep them for the same 2 years.

You can go back to the book whenever you like. From October 2027, though, a carrier’s movements also have to be recorded in Digital Waste Tracking, so you’ll need software for that by then, ours or someone else’s.