Under the Environmental Protection Act, every householder and business has a duty of care for the waste they produce. That duty does not end when the van pulls away. If the load is fly-tipped and traced back to you, the enforcement notice lands on you, not on the person you paid.
Councils across London now work from the same playbook: they check CCTV, doorbell footage and social posts, then issue a fixed-penalty notice of GBP 400 for a first offence. Commercial-scale or repeat cases go to court, where costs run into the thousands.
The three things that actually protect you are all paperwork. Use a licensed carrier who can show their Environment Agency registration, get a Waste Transfer Note for every load, and keep a copy for at least two years.
There is a fourth, less obvious risk: the neighbour with a van. If someone clears your loft as a favour and tips the load on a verge, the duty of care is still yours. Good intentions do not transfer liability, which is why we handle waste clearance in Wandsworth exactly the same way we handle a commercial job.
What we do on every load:
- We check the load against the transfer note description before it leaves your property.
- We email the Waste Transfer Note the same day, not weeks later.
- We keep it on file so you can produce it months afterwards if a council writes to you.
If a carrier cannot give you their registration number on the spot, they cannot protect you. Ours is published on every quote, every house clearance and every invoice.
