Skiplog vs Dsposal: two UK approaches to duty-of-care records
If you are weighing Skiplog against Dsposal for your yard's duty-of-care records, the shape of it is this: Skiplog is a single-purpose record keeper for UK skip yard and transfer station operators with one to twenty staff, pre-set for Environment Agency formats, and it is pre-launch on a waitlist today. For what Dsposal covers, read their own words on dsposal.uk, because we hold no captured, dated
Where the two sit
Both names come up when a UK operator starts looking for digital waste tracking. They are not the same kind of thing.
Skiplog is narrow on purpose. It puts a waste transfer note on a tablet in the yard. It holds that note on the device when the signal drops. It turns a quarter of those notes into the CSV return. It is made for the operator end of the chain: the weighbridge, the tip run, the skip exchange, the folder of carbonless copies nobody wants to total by hand in January. One site per account, unlimited transfer notes, unlimited registrations tracked, and nothing else bolted on.
For how Dsposal describe themselves, who they build for and what their product covers, read it in their own words on dsposal.uk. We hold no captured, dated quote from their site. So you will not find us putting words in their mouth anywhere on this page.
The moment you are in
Defra has consulted on making digital waste tracking mandatory in England. The timetable has moved before. Check the current position on GOV.UK rather than taking any vendor's word for it, ours included.
For a yard with two lorries and a part-time bookkeeper the practical point is simple. The paper pad and the spreadsheet stop being enough at some point. Better to find that out in your own time than during an inspection.
The decision in front of you
You are not choosing between two feature lists. You have three options. One is a small tool that does one job on a tablet. One is a broader operations platform, if you also want jobs, containers and invoicing in one place. The third is the statutory service itself, used directly, with no software in between.
That third one deserves a straight answer. Our separate page on whether the government waste tracking service is free works through it. Choosing wrong costs weeks of retraining drivers and redoing records. Twenty minutes of questions first is cheaper.
What we will not say about Dsposal
Our research note on Dsposal is dated 25 September 2026. It is explicit that nothing in it was confirmed against their live site, and that no direct quote was captured. So we are not going to publish a feature list for them, a price, or a judgement about how well their product works. Comparison pages that do that are usually wrong within a quarter, and they are not fair to the other company.
What we can do is tell you what to ask. These are the four answers that decide it for a small yard:
- What exactly happens with no signal: can a driver finish and save a note mid-job, and what if the app was not already open? Those are two different questions and most yards need the answer to both.
- What comes out at the end of a quarter, in what column layout, and does the file agree with what the screen showed? If you still have to reshape or re-add a file by hand, the tool has moved the work rather than removed it.
- What does it cost per month, in writing, for a site your size? If a price is only available on a call, that is worth knowing early.
- What happens to the records if you stop paying, and how do you get them out? You have to be able to produce two years of transfer notes whoever you are buying from.
Put the same four questions to us. We have answered them below, including the parts of Skiplog that are not finished yet, and those answers are the only capabilities we will claim.
Side by side, with the gaps marked
| What you are comparing | Skiplog (pre-launch, waitlist) | Dsposal (our note, 25 September 2026, no quote captured) |
|---|---|---|
| Who it is built for | UK skip yard and transfer station operators with 1 to 20 staff and no dedicated compliance clerk | Not quoted here. Ask them who they build for, and read their own wording on dsposal.uk |
| Waste transfer notes | Digital WTN with the EA-mandated fields: waste type, EWC code, quantity, carrier details and destination site, built to be completable in under 2 minutes on a phone or tablet | No dated quote captured. Ask what fields their note carries and how long one takes on a phone |
| When the signal drops | A note open on screen saves to the tablet first and shows queued, then syncing, then synced. Opening Skiplog cold in a blackspot is not covered yet: the note screen has to be open already | No dated quote captured. Ask what a driver can do mid-note with no bars, and what happens when the app was not already open |
| Getting held notes in | Queued notes sync on their own when the signal returns while Skiplog is open on that tablet. Close the app with notes still queued and they wait. Sign in on the tablet that goes out with the lorry, an | No dated quote captured. Ask what sends a held record once the lorry is back in signal, and what happens on a tablet two people share |
| Quarterly EA return | One-click CSV export in an EA-specified column layout, ready to submit without manual reformatting. The layout is set in the product rather than on a settings screen. Read the quarter's totals and per | No dated quote captured. Ask what file comes out at quarter end and whether its figures match the screen |
| Licence and registration expiry | Carrier, broker and dealer registrations tracked with expiry dates, anything inside 30 days flagged on the dashboard and a reminder raised against it. Sending those reminders by email needs a mail pro | No dated quote captured. Ask how renewals are tracked, who gets told and by what route |
| Site overview | Dashboard showing WTNs logged, tonnage by waste type and a compliance status overview | No dated quote captured. Ask what a site manager sees on one screen |
| Who can write a note | Pre-launch, the account that signs up is the account that records notes. There is no second account to hand out yet, so say so in your own planning | Not quoted here. Ask what accounts your drivers and your office will each need |
| Scope beyond records | Records only. No job booking, no scheduling, no container tracking, no invoicing | No dated quote captured. Ask what else is in the product, and whether you want that |
| Price | Launch pricing, not yet open for sale: Annual at £1,188 a year, which is £99 a month billed once a year, or Monthly at £129 a month, cancellable whenever you like | We hold no quoted price and will not estimate one. Ask for a written monthly figure for a site your size |
| Trial | 60 days free on either plan, covering one site with unlimited transfer notes and unlimited registrations | Not quoted here. Ask whether you can try it on a real week of loads first |
| Billing and signing in | Card payments run through Stripe, so card details never sit with Skiplog. Sign-in is email and password; there is no single sign-on and no two-factor authentication | Not quoted here. Ask how they bill, on what term, and what sign-in your staff get |
| Records and hosting | Held in Skiplog's application and Postgres database on Amazon Web Services, kept while the account is open. A lapsed trial leaves them readable and exportable. Delete account removes everything at onc | Not quoted here. Ask where your records are held and what happens to them if you stop paying |
What Skiplog is built to do
One note, under two minutes, on the tablet in the cab
Waste type, EWC code, quantity, carrier details and destination site, the EA-mandated fields on a transfer note, in a form sized for a thumb rather than a keyboard.
Saved on the tablet first, sent when the signal comes back
A note open on screen writes to the device before it writes to the office, and carries a visible chip reading queued, then syncing, then synced. It goes up on its own when connectivity returns while Skiplog is open on that tablet. Opening Skiplog cold in a blackspot is not covered yet, so the honest version is this: keep the note screen open, and close the app only once the chip says synced.
A quarter of notes into one file
The quarterly return exports as a CSV in an EA-specified column layout, so you are not reshaping columns by hand. The layout is set in the product rather than on a settings screen. Read the totals and the period dates before you send it: the file is built from what your yard typed in.
Registration expiry dates in front of you, not in a drawer
Carrier, broker and dealer registrations sit on a dashboard with their expiry dates, and anything inside 30 days is flagged with a reminder raised against it. Emailing those reminders needs a mail provider key connected to the account, and none has been sent on the pre-launch deployment yet, so treat the screen as the part to rely on.
One screen that says where the quarter stands
The site dashboard shows WTNs logged, tonnage by waste type and a compliance status overview, so the quarter end is not a surprise when it arrives.
A price you can sign off without a purchase process
£1,188 a year, which works out at £99 a month billed once a year, or £129 a month paid monthly, each with a 60-day free trial. One site, unlimited notes, unlimited registrations.
When to choose which
Skiplog is the right shape if
Your problem is the record, not the running of the business. You already know which skip is going where. Your drivers are competent and your office is small. What keeps you up is that the paperwork is on paper and something is changing.
You want one monthly number you can sign off without a purchase process. You want the note written on the tablet at the weighbridge and held on the device when the bars drop, instead of a pad re-keyed that evening. You would rather the quarterly return came out as one file you check than an afternoon of totting up. A yard of one to twenty staff with no dedicated compliance clerk is the size Skiplog is drawn around. The 60-day trial, once accounts open, is long enough to cover a quarter end on a real week of loads, which is the only test worth running.
Look at a broader operations platform if
Your list is longer than records. If you want job booking, container and asset tracking, scheduling or invoicing in the same place, Skiplog will not do it. Bolting a second system onto a records tool usually costs more than buying the broader one first. We have separate pages weighing Skiplog against the operations suites and the enterprise platforms. The same rule holds on all of them: we publish a competitor's capabilities only where we have a dated quote from their own site.
Take your list to Dsposal if
Rather than tell you what they do, take these questions to them and let their answers decide it. Is their focus connecting waste producers with licensed waste services, or keeping a permitted site's own records? Does their product cover duty-of-care documentation for an operator at a transfer station, or is it aimed at the producer handing waste over? What can a driver do on a phone with no signal, mid-note and from a standing start? What comes out at the end of a quarter, in what layout, and do its figures match the screen? What does a site your size pay per month, in writing, and what happens to the records if you leave?
Ask the same of us. If their answers fit your yard better than ours, that is the right outcome. Better found now than after the drivers have been retrained twice.
Questions
Is Skiplog a replacement for Dsposal?
We cannot answer that for you, because we hold no captured, dated quote from Dsposal describing what their product does. Read their own site, put the same questions to both of us, and compare the answers. What we will state is what Skiplog is built to do: digital transfer notes with the EA-mandated fields, capture that saves to the tablet first and syncs when the signal returns, registration expiry dates flagged on a dashboard, and a quarterly EA return as a CSV.
What does Dsposal cost compared with Skiplog?
We will not publish a Dsposal price. We have no quoted figure from their site, and an estimate would be a guess presented as a fact. Ask them for a written monthly figure for a site your size. Skiplog's launch pricing is £1,188 a year, which is £99 a month billed once a year, or £129 a month paid monthly and cancellable whenever you like, each with a 60-day free trial covering one site with unlimited transfer notes and unlimited registrations.
Does Skiplog work when the yard has no signal?
Partly, and the distinction is the thing to check with any vendor. A note already open on the tablet saves to the device first and carries a queued, syncing or synced status, and it goes up on its own when the signal returns while Skiplog is open on that tablet. What is not covered yet is a standing start: opening Skiplog fresh in a blackspot does not bring the note form up. So keep the form open on the tablet that goes out with the lorry, and close the app only once the note reads synced.
Do the registration expiry reminders arrive by email?
Tracking and the flag work on screen: every carrier, broker and dealer registration carries its expiry date, anything inside 30 days is flagged on the dashboard and a reminder is raised against it. Sending those reminders as email needs a mail provider key connected to the account, and on the pre-launch deployment no reminder email has been delivered yet. Treat the dashboard as the part to rely on, and ask any other vendor the same question in two parts: what is raised, and what actually leaves the building.
Who can record a transfer note in Skiplog today?
The account that signs up. Pre-launch there is no second account to hand out, so the weighbridge and the office would be working from one login. If separate sign-ins per person is a condition of your purchase, say so when you join the waitlist, and ask every vendor on your list what accounts your drivers and your office will each need.
How long is the Skiplog trial?
Sixty days on either plan, annual or monthly. That is deliberately longer than a month, because the test a yard actually cares about is a quarter end: a week of real loads captured at the weighbridge, then the return file that comes out the other side.
Do I need either of them if the government service is free to use?
That is the right question to ask before you buy anything, and it deserves a proper answer rather than a line in a comparison. Our page on whether the government waste tracking service is free goes through what an operator can do directly and what, if anything, paid software adds on top. Check the current position on GOV.UK as well, since it is the only authoritative source on what the statutory service requires.
What happens to my records, and how do I sign in?
People sign in with an email address and a password. There is no single sign-on and no two-factor authentication. Records are held in Skiplog's application and Postgres database on Amazon Web Services, and everything is kept while the account is open. A lapsed trial does not lock the records away: they stay readable and exportable. A transfer note you remove comes off your register and returns but stays on file for the two years the regulations require, and Delete account in Billing removes the lot at once. Card payments run through Stripe, so card details never sit with Skiplog.