Duty of care paperworkTransfer notes, weighbridge tickets and the register they are filed in

Every line a note has to carryEntry H1

A transfer note is the record that waste passed lawfully from one holder to another. It is completed and signed by both parties at the transfer, and each line below has to be filled before the load moves.

Description

Words specific enough that the receiving site can handle the load properly, naming what the bulk of it is and what else is in it.

Six-digit code

The List of Wastes entry the description falls to, written alongside the description rather than instead of it.

Quantity

The container size at lifting, amended to the net tonnage once the load has crossed the weighbridge.

Containment

How the load travels: a sheeted open body, a lidded wheeled container, a roll-on roll-off container or a cage.

Producer, and the business it is

Name and address of the party the waste came from, together with the standard industrial classification code of that business.

Carrier

Name, address and carrier registration number of this company as the party moving the load.

Place and time

The address the container stood at, and the moment it changed hands.

Hierarchy declaration

A statement that the steps of the waste hierarchy were applied to the waste before it was transferred.

Signatures

One from each party, given at the transfer and not written up afterwards from memory.

The line most often left blank is the classification code of the producer's own business, so it is asked for at booking rather than at the kerb.

One note covering a run of collectionsEntry H2

Where the same waste moves between the same two parties on the same terms, a single note can cover the whole run for up to a year. It is worked on a standing cycle, so that a wheeled container exchanged every fortnight does not generate a fresh signature every time.

Three things have to hold for the run to stay covered. The description must stay the same, so that a container described as cardboard stays cardboard. The parties must stay the same, so that a change of occupier at the site ends the run. The containment and the collection point must stay the same, so that moving the container to a different yard starts a new note.

Once any of the three changes, the run closes and a fresh note is raised from that collection onwards. The closed note stays on file for its own retention period, so that the record of the earlier collections is not lost when the new one opens.

A run covering repeated collections is reviewed before it reaches a year, so that the cover does not lapse quietly between two exchanges.

Weighbridge tickets and how a tonnage reaches the noteEntry H3

Loads are weighed at the permitted transfer station, not on the road and not by eye. The vehicle crosses the bridge loaded and again empty, and the difference between the two is the net tonnage of the load.

The ticket prints the gross weight, the tare weight, the net weight, the vehicle registration and the time of weighing. That net figure is copied onto the transfer note, so that the paperwork and the weighing agree and a single load is not described by two different quantities.

Tonnages are totalled by stream for the returns the transfer station makes to the regulator, and an exchange is charged against the net figure rather than against the body size. Where a load of rubble reaches its weight limit before the body is full, the ticket is the record that explains why a part-filled body was lifted.

A ticket is filed with the note it belongs to, so that the two travel together for the whole of the retention period.

The register the notes are filed inEntry H4

Notes are filed by collection date and indexed by site, so that a producer asking about a load from a given week can be answered from the file rather than from memory.

The register may be kept on paper or kept electronically, and the form it takes matters less than whether an entry can be produced when it is asked for. Each entry carries the note itself, the weighbridge ticket where the load was weighed, and the run sheet line recording the exchange. A missed exchange is entered too, with the reason it was missed, so that the gap in the sequence is explained by the file.

A regulator may ask to see the notes for any transfer within the retention period, and the file is produced on request without further notice. The producer copy is issued at the transfer, so that the other party holds its own record from the moment the load leaves and does not depend on this office for it.

A duplicate is run off at the transfer station and travels back with the next container exchange, so that a copy reaches the site as a matter of course.

How long each record stays on the fileEntry H5

Retention runs from the transfer rather than from the end of the job, so a note raised on the last exchange of a long contract is kept longer than the notes that came before it.

• RecordWaste transfer note

  Held byProducer and carrier, one copy each

  Kept forTwo years from the transfer

• RecordNote covering a run of repeated collections

  Held byProducer and carrier

  Kept forTwo years from the last transfer it covers

• RecordWeighbridge ticket

  Held byCarrier, filed with its note

  Kept forTwo years, alongside the note

• RecordConsignment note for a hazardous load

  Held byProducer of that waste

  Kept forAt least three years

• RecordCarrier record of a consignment

  Held byThe carrier that moved it

  Kept forAt least twelve months

• RecordRun sheet line and access notes

  Held byCarrier

  Kept forWhile the site stays on the round

Consignment notes belong to the licensed contractor that carries those loads, which is the arrangement set out at field G of the note. The periods above are the ones that attach to the record itself, so they run whether or not the account behind them is still live.

The retention schedule lists every record this office holds on a collection and why it is held. Return to the transfer note, or read booked collections.