Licensed Waste Carrier — what it actually protects you from

Under the Environmental Protection Act, anyone arranging to have waste taken off their property has a legal duty of care. If the person you pay dumps the waste illegally (the side of a country lane, a layby, a slip road) and it gets traced back to you, the council can and will issue a fixed-penalty notice of £400 to the householder, and in serious cases it goes to court with costs running into thousands.

The only way to reliably protect yourself is three things, in writing:

1. Use a carrier who appears on the Environment Agency public register and can show you their registration number.
2. Get a proper Waste Transfer Note (WTN) for every load, describing the waste, the carrier, and the destination.
3. Keep a copy for at least 2 years.

Everything we do at The Junk Squad follows this exactly. Your WTN is emailed automatically as soon as the job is completed, and our Environment Agency registration is displayed on every page of the site, every quote, and every invoice. You can see how that works on rubbish removal in Islington, house clearance in Kensington and office clearance in Westminster.