The Environment Agency public register of waste sites
The Environment Agency public register of waste sites is the openly published list of the environmental permits, exemptions and waste carrier, broker and dealer registrations the Environment Agency has issued in England. Anyone can search it, which means your yard's entry is public and so is the registration of every haulier who pulls onto your weighbridge.
What the public register of waste sites is
The Environment Agency public register of waste sites is the openly accessible record the Environment Agency keeps of the waste permits, exemptions and registrations it has granted in England. Permitting a site is a public act, so the fact of the permission is published rather than held privately between the regulator and the operator.
In practice that means two things for a skip yard or a transfer station. Your own entry is out there, naming the business and the site, and you did not have to publish it yourself. And every carrier, broker or dealer you deal with has an entry too, which is what makes a duty of care check possible before you let a load tip.
The register is England only. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own regulators keeping their own equivalents, which matters when a load crosses a border. Our sibling page on whether digital waste tracking applies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland covers that ground.
An example
A builder rings a yard for a price and, before paying a deposit, searches the register for the yard's name to see that the site is permitted for the waste he is bringing. The same week, that yard's manager is handed a CBDU number by a new haulier at the gate and looks it up to see that the registration is real and still live. Both are the register doing its job: a stranger confirming a permission without having to take anyone's word for it.
What an entry generally tells you
Who holds the permission
The name of the business or person the Environment Agency granted it to. Worth comparing against the name on the invoice and the name painted on the lorry, because they are not always the same.
Which site it covers
A permit is tied to a place. An entry points at an address, so a permission held for one yard does not quietly cover another one down the road.
The reference number
The permit or registration reference is the thing you quote on paperwork and the thing an inspector matches your records against, so it is worth copying down exactly rather than from memory.
The status and the dates
Registrations run for a term and then lapse. Looking one up tells you where it stands on the day you look, which is why a check made last year is not a check.
How you search it
The register is free to search and needs no account, so a gate check costs nothing but the minute it takes on a phone. Field names and layouts are the Environment Agency's to change, so read the current screen rather than a remembered one.
What the register is not
It is a record of permissions, not a record of your loads. Being listed says the Environment Agency permitted your site. It says nothing about whether your transfer notes are complete, whether your tonnage adds up, or whether your quarterly return went in on time. Those live in your own records and in the digital waste tracking service.
It is also not a submission route. You cannot file anything through the register, and nothing you record in software appears on it. If you are looking for the service you will actually send movement data to, read the sibling glossary page on what the digital waste tracking service is.
And it is a snapshot, not a subscription. Nobody emails you when a carrier's registration is about to run out. A check is only good for the day you made it, which is the gap most yards end up covering with a note in a diary.
Related terms
- Environmental permit: the permission a transfer station or skip yard holds to accept and handle waste at a named site. The thing most register entries are about.
- Exemption: a lighter registered permission for lower risk activity, recorded rather than permitted. Also public.
- Waste carrier, broker or dealer registration: upper tier or lower tier, the permission a haulier or broker needs. The CBDU number on their paperwork is what you look up.
- Duty of care: the obligation to pass waste only to someone authorised to take it. Checking the register is how that obligation gets met in practice.
- Waste transfer note: the record of a single transfer between two parties, naming the waste, the quantity, the carrier and the destination. Your record, not the register's.
- EWC code: the List of Waste code describing what is in the skip, written on the transfer note.
- Technically competent manager: the WAMITAB qualified person a permitted site needs. Covered on the sibling page about WAMITAB and the technically competent manager.
If you are reading this because the October 2026 digital waste tracking mandate is on your mind rather than the register itself, the sibling guide on what changes in 2026 is the better start, and the page on keeping the records straight without a compliance clerk covers how a small yard handles it without hiring.
Questions
Is the Environment Agency public register free to search?
Yes. It is openly accessible and needs no account, which is the point of a public register. You can run a check on a phone at the gate.
Does the register prove a carrier is registered today?
It shows you the position at the moment you look. Registrations run for a term and lapse, so a check made months ago tells you nothing about this morning's load. Record the date you checked alongside the reference.
Is the public register the same as the digital waste tracking service?
No. The register lists permissions. The digital waste tracking service is where waste movement data goes. Our glossary page on the digital waste tracking service explains what that service is and what it expects.
Does being on the register mean my records are in order?
No. The register reflects the permission your site holds, not the quality of your transfer notes or returns. Record keeping is judged on your own records, which is why the register is a starting point for a check rather than evidence of compliance.
Can I download the whole register rather than searching one entry at a time?
The Environment Agency publishes open data in bulk for many of its datasets, so look for an official download on gov.uk before resorting to anything else, and read the licence terms attached to it. For a single gate check, searching one entry is quicker anyway.
My own entry looks wrong. Who fixes it?
The Environment Agency holds the register, so a correction goes to them through the permit or registration it relates to, not through any software you use. Keep your own copy of the permit reference exactly as it reads, because it ends up on your paperwork and your returns.