The ticket you already made goes to Defra.

Which one are you?

That is the whole question, and it is worth being sure rather than assuming. Permitted sites in England and Wales are in from 1 October 2026. Exemptions are not in this phase — GOV.UK say they come in a later one, so it is not something to forget about either.

Check on GOV.UK whether you need to report the waste you receive — their page, their words, kept up to date by them.

If you are not sure which you hold, message us and we will go through it with you. It costs nothing and you do not have to buy anything.

Defra will take the records on a spreadsheet

You do not have to buy software at all. Defra publish a template: you download it, fill it in and upload it — a row for the load on one sheet, a row for what was in it on another, every load, inside the deadline. You cannot use your own spreadsheet or change the format of theirs.

The template itself costs nothing, though the service is not free either way: Defra charge the yard £26 a year for each organisation on the account, whether you send by spreadsheet or through software. If your gate takes a few loads a week, the template will do you. If your gate is busy, it is somebody’s second job — and that is the job this removes.

What ScrapLog does about it

One question in the settings, asked once: permit, or exemption? Answer exemption and nothing is ever sent, and the waste section is not even on the screen.

Answer permit, and the ticket your gate already made becomes the Defra record. Nobody at the scale types a waste code or thinks about a deadline — it comes off the load they have already taken, and it goes inside the deadline whether anyone has remembered it or not.

What the deadline actually is. The end of the second working day after the day the load arrives. Weekends and bank holidays do not count, so a Friday load is due Tuesday. ScrapLog sends when the office posts the load — or at the gate, if you turn that on — and in the last twelve hours before that deadline in any case, whether or not anybody has remembered it.

What goes: the load, its metals, the weights, the site and who brought it. What never goes: an ID document, a photograph, a seller’s address, or anything about a payment.

What waste tracking does not replace

Consignment notes and your quarterly return carry on exactly as they are. This is a new thing on top, not a replacement, whatever anyone tells you.

ScrapLog prepares the quarterly return as a file in the Environment Agency’s own columns. You send it to them yourself, on their form.

Where we stand

Built on Defra’s Receipt of Waste API

Production approval tests passed — their words, 2 September 2026.

PAT exemptions: none

Defra’s page tells you to ask a provider whether their product has been granted any — a provider that does not handle hazardous waste can be excused those scenarios. We asked for none and hold none: all fourteen were run and passed. You can check that without asking us, because the list writes the exemption next to the product where there is one.

The GOV.UK list of software providers

We are on it, since 8 September 2026 — ECET Solutions Limited, ScrapLog. Defra’s own page says what that means: the product has integrated with the receipt of waste service API and passed the production approval tests. It does not mean your yard is signed off, and Defra say so themselves on the same page.

What that ticket also is

The same ticket is your metal book, your payment record with the payer’s name on it, the seller’s ID checked before anybody is paid, and what is left on the yard. That is what you are paying for. The Defra record comes off the end of it.

At the gate · In the office · What you can see

What ScrapLog costs

£200 a month, per site, and £300 once to set your yard up. There is no VAT on top and nothing to buy in the way of hardware. Waste tracking is not a separate charge — it is the same ticket your gate already makes.