DWTS for vehicle breakers and ATFs: what your yard needs to know

Every end-of-life vehicle that arrives at a vehicle breaker or ATF is a waste load, and since 1 October 2026 receiving sites in England and Wales have had to report those loads through DEFRA's Digital Waste Tracking Service. Scotland and Northern Ireland follow in January 2027.

This guide is for yards that take in cars: what counts as a load, where the auction paperwork fits, who records what when material leaves, and how to keep the whole thing quick when cars come through the gate all day.

What the mandate means for a vehicle breaker

Digital waste tracking replaces the old paper trail for waste movements with records submitted through DEFRA's service. In this first phase the duty sits with receiving sites: if your yard is licensed or permitted to receive controlled waste, it is in scope, and that includes authorised treatment facilities.

England and Wales went live on 1 October 2026, and Scotland and Northern Ireland follow in January 2027 (the Scotland and Northern Ireland guide covers the details there). Each load is due within two working days of arriving. A missed report is a fixed penalty of £1,000 per breach, and variable penalties are available beyond that.

Before you can report, your organisation needs its own DEFRA registration; the registration guide steps through what to do.

Every vehicle arriving is a load

A car arriving as waste is a load like any other, and one delivery is one record. When several vehicles arrive together on one transporter they can go on a single note with an item for each car, so every vehicle keeps its own weight, waste code and description. Loads that arrive separately are separate notes.

End-of-life vehicles take one of two waste codes depending on their state. An undepolluted vehicle is hazardous waste, code 16 01 04*. A depolluted shell is non-hazardous, code 16 01 06. The user guide's section on waste codes has both, and the EWC codes guide has the wider picture for receipts of waste.

For a day's cars, bulk entry is the quick way through: pick a template, add a row per vehicle with its weight and description, set the arrival date and time once for the batch, then sign once and the notes go to DEFRA together. The user guide's bulk entry section walks through it, and the sample library carries ready-made templates for undepolluted vehicles and depolluted shells.

The auction's paperwork is not your DEFRA record

Yards that buy stock from auction houses such as Copart often ask whether the auction's form is what DEFRA wants. It is not. That form is part of your purchase paperwork and carries on as it is; the auction house is not submitting it for you at this stage. The DEFRA record is the receipt of the load at your site, and as the receiving site that record is yours. In practice that means adding each vehicle to your records as it arrives and sending the batch.

Shells, parts and depollution waste leaving the yard

Material leaving the yard works the same way round: when depolluted shells, tyres, fluids and batteries go out to a processor or recycler, the receiving site records that load. Your own paperwork carries on: transfer notes, annual returns and exemption registrations are unaffected. The next phase of the service, covering carriers, brokers and dealers, starts in October 2027.

The Certificate of Destruction and the waste record

The Certificate of Destruction and the digital waste record are two different documents doing two different jobs. The Certificate of Destruction goes through DVLA and deregisters the vehicle. The waste record goes to DEFRA and tracks the material. LoadLog handles the second one only; the two run alongside each other.

Questions breakers keep asking

These come up whenever we talk to breakers, and each one has a full answer in the user guide:

• Can one note cover several vehicles?
• We do not have a weighbridge. What do we record for the weight?
• When we buy from an auction like Copart, do we upload their form to DEFRA?
• Which template should we use for vehicles we receive?

How LoadLog fits

LoadLog records every end-of-life vehicle that comes through your gate, with its waste code, weight and who brought it in. It submits the records to DEFRA, keeps a PDF of every note for your files, and provides analysis if something needs fixing. Bulk entry and CSV import come with Compliance Lite at £12 a month, and there is a free plan for lower volumes. The vehicle breaker and ATF page has the fuller picture.

This article is our interpretation of the published guidance rather than legal advice, so where something matters for your site, check with DEFRA or your national environment agency.