Waste Transfer Note Example: 3 Completed WTN Samples (2026)

Seeing a completed waste transfer note is one of the fastest ways to understand what the document actually requires. Despite the legal language surrounding the Environmental Protection (Duty of Care) Regulations 1991 (SI 1991/2839), a WTN is fundamentally a practical record of who gave waste to whom, what the waste was, and when and where the handover happened. The challenge is not complexity but completeness: every mandatory field must be filled in correctly, and the details must be specific enough to satisfy an Environment Agency officer reviewing the note months or years later.

This article provides three fully worked examples of completed waste transfer notes covering the most common scenarios in practice. Each example shows exactly what should appear in each section of the note, using realistic but fictional company names and details. Use these as a reference when completing your own WTNs, or compare them against notes you have already issued to identify gaps. For an explanation of every field and what it means, see our full guide to thewaste transfer note template.

What Must a Completed WTN Contain?

Before looking at the examples, here is a summary of the four sections that every waste transfer note must contain. These sections are prescribed by Regulation 2 of the Environmental Protection (Duty of Care) Regulations 1991 and elaborated in the Duty of Care Code of Practice (2016). A WTN missing any of these sections is non-compliant and may be treated by the Environment Agency as if no WTN existed at all.

The examples below use these four sections as the framework. In practice, some WTN templates combine or reorder these sections, but the information required is always the same. For a step-by-step walkthrough of how to fill in each field, see our guide onhow to fill in a waste transfer note.

Example 1: Skip Hire Collection

This is the most common WTN scenario in the UK. A building contractor hires an 8-yard skip from a skip hire company for a kitchen and bathroom refurbishment project. The skip is filled over several days with construction and demolition waste. The skip company collects the filled skip and transports it to a licensed transfer station. The WTN must be completed at the point of collection, when the waste physically changes hands from the builder (transferor) to the skip company (transferee).

Section A: Waste Description

Section B: Transferor (the Builder)

Section C: Transferee (the Skip Company)

Section D: Transfer Details

Notice several things about this example. The waste description is specific: it names the actual materials in the skip, not just "mixed waste" or "building rubble". The EWC code 17 09 04 is consistent with the description. The quantity is stated as an approximate weight, not as "1 skip". Both parties have signed. The destination site and its permit number are included, which is best practice even though not strictly mandatory on the WTN itself. For more detail on EWC code selection, see our guide onEWC codes explained.

Example 2: Commercial Waste Collection

A medium-sized accounting firm in central Birmingham has its trade waste collected weekly by a commercial waste management company. The waste is predominantly office waste: paper, cardboard, food packaging from the staff kitchen, and general dry mixed recyclables. The collection is a routine weekly service covered by a contract, but each individual collection still requires a WTN (or the arrangement can be covered by a season ticket if the waste type, parties, and site remain the same for up to 12 months).

This example shows a single collection WTN. If the same waste type is collected from the same site by the same carrier every week, a season ticket could replace individual notes for up to 12 months.

Section A: Waste Description

Section B: Transferor (the Accounting Firm)

Section C: Transferee (the Waste Collection Company)

Section D: Transfer Details

This example highlights several important points for commercial waste. The EWC code 20 03 01 (mixed municipal waste) is appropriate here because the waste is comparable in nature and composition to household waste, despite being generated by a business. The quantity is estimated using the known volume of the containers and an approximate density, which is acceptable when no weighbridge is available at the point of collection. The SIC code identifies the producer's business activity, which helps enforcement officers understand the context in which the waste was generated.

Note that the office manager, not a director, signed on behalf of the transferor. This is permitted: any person authorised by the business to sign WTNs can do so. There is no legal requirement that a director must sign, though the person signing must be genuinely authorised to act on the company's behalf.

Example 3: Delivery to a Transfer Station

This scenario is different from the first two. Here, a waste carrier delivers a load of sorted timber waste to a licensed waste transfer station. The carrier is the transferor (they are handing over waste they collected from various sites) and the transfer station operator is the transferee (they are receiving the waste under their environmental permit). This type of WTN is completed at the gate of the receiving facility, often in conjunction with weighbridge records.

In this example, a regional waste carrier delivers a load of untreated timber waste collected from multiple construction sites in the Leeds area. The timber has been segregated as a single waste stream for recycling.

Section A: Waste Description

Section B: Transferor (the Waste Carrier)

Section C: Transferee (the Transfer Station)

Section D: Transfer Details

This example illustrates several differences from the previous two scenarios. First, the transferor is a waste carrier, not a waste producer. In this chain, the carrier previously collected the timber from multiple construction sites (each of those collections would have had its own WTN between the builder and the carrier). Now the carrier is transferring the consolidated load to a treatment facility. Second, the transferee's legal authority is an environmental permit, not a carrier registration, because the transfer station is a permitted waste facility, not a carrier. Third, the quantity is exact, not estimated, because the transfer station has a weighbridge and the timber was weighed on arrival. The weighbridge ticket number is recorded for cross-referencing.

The description explicitly states "no painted, treated, or laminated timber present" because treated timber may be hazardous waste (EWC 17 02 04*) and would require a consignment note rather than a WTN. This kind of negative declaration is good practice for waste streams where there is a hazardous mirror entry in the EWC.

Good vs Bad: What Makes a WTN Compliant

Having seen three complete examples, here is a summary of the most common differences between a compliant WTN and a non-compliant one. These are the specific issues that Environment Agency officers look for during inspections and that can trigger fixed penalty notices or prosecution.

The pattern is consistent: non-compliant WTNs are characterised by vagueness, missing details, and unverifiable claims. Compliant WTNs are specific, complete, and verifiable against external records (the EA public register, Companies House, weighbridge systems). For a comprehensive list of the most frequent errors and how to avoid them, see our guide tocommon mistakes on waste transfer notes.

Digital WTN Examples

The three examples above are presented in a table format for clarity, but in practice, increasingly few WTNs are completed on paper. The Duty of Care Code of Practice (2016) explicitly confirms that digital waste transfer notes are legally equivalent to paper ones, provided all mandatory fields are present and both parties have signed electronically.

A digital WTN system offers several advantages that directly address the most common compliance failures illustrated in the good vs bad comparison above:

• Mandatory field validation: A digital system can prevent submission until all required fields are completed. This eliminates the most common paper WTN problem: missing fields discovered only when an EA officer inspects months later.
• EWC code lookup: Rather than guessing or leaving the field blank, a digital system can provide a searchable EWC code database so the user selects the correct 6-digit code from the official List of Wastes.
• Automatic timestamping: The date and time of completion are recorded automatically, making backdating impossible to conceal. This protects both parties in any future dispute about when the transfer occurred.
• Electronic signatures: Both transferor and transferee sign digitally on screen. The system records who signed, when, and from what device, creating an audit trail that is far more robust than a scrawled signature on a damp piece of paper in a skip company's yard.
• Automatic record retention: Completed notes are stored securely in the cloud for the legally required minimum of two years. No filing cabinets, no lost paperwork, no fire risk. Records can be produced instantly if the EA requests an inspection.
• Carrier registration verification: Some digital systems include a direct link to the EA public register, prompting the user to verify the carrier's registration number before the note can be finalised.

The information on a digital WTN is identical to a paper WTN. The three examples in this article would look the same whether completed on paper or digitally. The difference is that a digital system makes it significantly harder to produce a non-compliant note, because the system enforces completeness, consistency, and proper signatures before the note is issued.

DEFRA's forthcoming mandatory digital waste tracking system will require all waste transfers in England to be recorded digitally. Businesses that adopt digital WTN systems now will be ahead of this regulatory change. For a detailed comparison of paper and digital approaches, see our article onwhat is a waste transfer note.

Create Your Own

The examples in this article are designed to serve as a practical reference. When completing your own waste transfer notes, use the level of detail shown in these examples as your benchmark. If your waste description is less specific than the examples above, it is probably not specific enough. If your carrier registration field says "registered" rather than an actual CBDU or CBDL number, it is not compliant.

Keep copies of these examples alongside your WTN template as a quick-reference guide. Better yet, use a digital system that builds the required level of detail into its workflow so you cannot accidentally produce an inadequate note.