Should a waste return be in tonnes or kilograms?
A quarterly waste return is normally read in tonnes, while the ticket off your weighbridge prints kilograms, so a conversion happens somewhere between the yard and the file you send. The unit to report in is the one the column heading on your return names, and the heading and the figures have to agree.
Why the unit matters on a return
Nothing in a skip yard is weighed in tonnes. The weighbridge prints kilograms, the driver writes kilograms on the ticket, and the transfer note for that load is filled in from the ticket. A quarterly return is read in tonnes, so a conversion has to happen somewhere between the yard and the file the area office gets.
The factor between the two units is a thousand, which is why the question is worth settling properly rather than guessing at it. A unit mix-up is never a small error. It lands three orders of magnitude out in one direction or the other, and on a statutory record that is the kind of figure a reader stops at and asks about.
What a readable return looks like
- The heading and the figures agree. A kilogram figure sitting under a tonnes heading is wrong by a thousand even though every number on the page came off a real ticket.
- One unit per column, for the whole quarter, so nobody has to work out which rows are which.
- Three decimal places of a tonne, because three decimals is one kilogram, so nothing the weighbridge can measure vanishes into a rounding.
- The weighbridge tickets kept where you can reach them, because they are the only independent record of what a load actually weighed.
Kilograms on the ticket, tonnes on the return
| Weighbridge ticket (kg) | Divided by 1000 | Written on the return (t) |
|---|---|---|
| 12050 | 12.05 | 12.050 |
| 6500 | 6.5 | 6.500 |
| 2460 | 2.46 | 2.460 |
| 870 | 0.87 | 0.870 |
| 75 | 0.075 | 0.075 |
Where the conversion belongs
A per-load record and a quarterly summary are different documents, and they do not have to share a unit. The transfer note is the record of one load, so the natural figure on it is the weight as the weighbridge gave it. The return is a summary of three months, so the natural figure there is the one the column heading names.
Convert once, at the point the summary is produced, rather than once per load on the last Friday of the quarter. There is then a single arithmetic step to check instead of a hundred, and the chain from ticket to total stays short enough to walk somebody along: this ticket, this note, this line of the return.
Whichever way you settle it, write it down as the yard's standing rule. The unit on a return is the sort of thing that otherwise gets decided by whoever happens to be filling the form in, and that is how two consecutive quarters end up in two different units.
Questions
Should a waste return be in tonnes or kilograms?
Report in the unit the column heading on your return names. In practice that is almost always tonnes, because a quarter of skip loads expressed in kilograms produces six and seven figure numbers that are hard to read and easy to mistype. Keep kilograms as the working figure on each transfer note, since that is what the weighbridge gives you, and convert once at the point the return is produced. Check the heading your area office asks for before you send anything, because the heading and the figures have to say the same thing.
How do I convert kilograms from the weighbridge ticket into tonnes?
Divide by a thousand. A 6500 kg load is 6.500 tonnes, an 870 kg load is 0.870 tonnes, and a 75 kg load is 0.075 tonnes. The arithmetic is trivial for one load and tedious for a quarter of them, which is why hand-added returns are worth checking twice. Skiplog holds the quantity against each transfer note and produces the quarterly CSV from those notes, so the period is totalled in one place rather than added up on a tally sheet.
How many decimal places should I keep?
Three is the sensible habit, because three decimal places of a tonne is one kilogram, so nothing a weighbridge can measure gets lost. Rounding to one decimal place turns a 40 kg load of plasterboard into 0.0 tonnes and drops it out of the quarter. Rounding to whole tonnes is worse again, and it compounds across a hundred small loads. If your return template specifies a number of decimals, follow the template, but keep the full figure in your own records so the total can always be rebuilt.
Can I record notes in kilograms and report in tonnes?
Yes, and that is usually the cleanest way to work. The transfer note is the record of one load, so it carries the weight as weighed, in the kilograms off the ticket, where it can be matched against the paper. The return is a summary of a quarter, so it carries totals in the unit the heading names. Skiplog keeps the quantity on each note and produces the quarterly CSV from those notes, so you are not maintaining two sets of figures by hand.
What if a load was never weighed and we only know the skip size?
A skip size is a volume, not a weight, and an eight yard skip of soil and an eight yard skip of timber are nothing like each other on the weighbridge. If you have to estimate, estimate a weight, record how you arrived at it, and be consistent about it across the quarter. Estimating is a judgement for the site to make and defend, so write the basis down somewhere you can find it rather than carrying it in your head.
Do the quantities on my transfer notes have to add up to the total on the return?
They should, and that is the first thing a reconciliation looks at. If the return total and the sum of the notes for the same period disagree, something has been double counted, dropped, or converted twice. Skiplog's site dashboard shows notes logged and tonnage by waste type, so you have a second figure to compare against the quarter's export before it goes anywhere. If the two disagree, find the load that explains the gap rather than adjusting the total.
What happens if one quarter is in kilograms and the next in tonnes?
You lose the ability to compare quarters, and anyone reading your file year on year sees a step change that looks like a thousandfold swing in throughput. Pick one unit for the return, write it down as the yard's standing rule, and keep the per-load records in kilograms underneath. Mixing units inside a single column is the worst version of this, because a reader has no way of telling which rows are which.
How does Skiplog handle the quantity on each note?
Each transfer note carries the quantity along with waste type, EWC code, carrier details and destination, so the weight is tied to one load rather than to a tally sheet. The quarterly return is a one-click CSV export in a configurable EA column layout, so the file comes out in the columns your area office asks for rather than being reformatted by hand. The site dashboard shows tonnage by waste type alongside the notes logged, which gives you a figure to sanity check the export against. Skiplog is built for yards that cannot spare a compliance clerk to do the adding up.