Every field a compliant note has to carry, how long you have to keep it, and when one note can cover a year of collections. With free fillable templates already set up for cooking oil.
A waste transfer note is the document that records the moment your waste stops being your problem physically and starts being your problem on paper. Under section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, and the duty of care regulations that sit under it, you have to complete one for every transfer, keep it for at least two years and produce it on request.
It is a short document, and it is not difficult. What makes it worth getting right is that it is the only evidence you have that your oil went somewhere lawful. If a collector fly-tips it, having paid someone to take it away is not by itself a defence.
These come from the Waste Duty of Care Code of Practice and the Environment Agency's own form. Miss one and the note is defective, whatever the collector's paperwork looks like.
Full enough that the next person handling it can do so lawfully without ringing you. "Waste oil" fails that test, because it does not separate cooking oil from engine oil. "Used cooking oil from food preparation, non-hazardous, liquid vegetable oils and fats" passes it.
Also called the List of Waste code or the EWC code. For used cooking oil from a catering kitchen it is 20 01 25, edible oil and fat. This is the field most often wrong on a catering note, usually because someone copied a code from a general waste contract.
A statement that you have applied the waste hierarchy, required by regulation 12 of the Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2011. On the Environment Agency's form it sits directly above the transferor's signature, and signing there is what confirms it. This is the field most often missing from a home-made template, and its absence makes the note defective. Sending your oil for recycling rather than disposal is how you discharge the duty.
Used cooking oil from normal catering use is not hazardous. Engine, hydraulic and industrial oils are, and they belong to an entirely different chapter of the List of Waste and a different set of paperwork.
A real measured figure in litres or kilograms, not "one bin". If you are paid per litre, this number should be the same number you were paid on. Where those two disagree, one of them is wrong and an officer will notice.
Record the number and size of containers: two 60 litre sealed drums, one 240 litre wheeled container. This matters for liability if something happens to the load in transit.
Yours as the producer, using the address where the waste was actually produced rather than a registered office, and the carrier's. The name on the note has to match the company that invoices you.
The Standard Industrial Classification code for your business. Common ones in this trade are 56103 for take-away food shops and mobile food stands, 56101 for licensed restaurants, 56102 for unlicensed restaurants and cafes and 56302 for public houses and bars. Yours is on your Companies House record.
The Environment Agency waste carrier registration, in the form CBDU followed by digits. Check it on the public register before your first collection rather than after it. Ours is CBDU649455.
You as the producer of the waste, the collector as a registered carrier and, if they are buying the oil rather than only moving it, as a dealer. A lower tier registration does not cover buying and selling your waste.
A specific date and time, and the address the oil was handed over at. On a season ticket this becomes the period covered instead, and the individual collections go on your register.
One signature is not a transfer note. Both parties sign the same document and both keep a copy.
No email address, no form, no sign-up. Start with the Environment Agency's own blank form: it is the one an officer will recognise, and it is maintained by the regulator rather than by us. Our versions are the same form with the parts that never change already filled in.
Form WMC2A, the regulator's own blank waste transfer note, exactly as published on GOV.UK. Nothing added and nothing removed. If you want the form an environmental health officer will recognise on sight, this is it.
Download 26 kBEvery section of the official form, with the parts that never change on a cooking oil transfer already entered: the waste description, List of Waste code 20 01 25, drum containment, and our carrier registration. You fill in your details, the quantity and the date.
Download 25 kBThe same document set up for repeated collections from one site, with a date range and an agreed collection pattern in place of a single transfer time. Complete it once and log the individual collections on your register. A season ticket cannot run longer than a year.
Download 26 kBColumns for every field the code of practice requires, plus where you filed the note. Opens in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets. This is the index that makes two years of paperwork findable in a minute rather than an afternoon.
Download 1 kBThe Environment Agency form is form WMC2A, reproduced from GOV.UK unchanged. It contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Everything else here is ours, published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) . Copy it, print it, put it on your own website, adapt it for your borough. The only condition is that you credit London Oil Collection Ltd and link back. No permission needed and no need to tell us, though we would like to hear about it. Our versions follow the official form's sections field for field, but they are adaptations and are not official Environment Agency forms, which is stated on each one.
Two honest caveats. The register is aligned to the fields the duty of care code requires today, and we review it whenever Defra updates the specification; we do not claim it matches whatever the digital waste tracking service will eventually demand of carriers, because that schema is not settled. And these are general templates for England. They are not legal advice, and if your situation is unusual, ask your local authority or an adviser. Last reviewed 27 July 2026.
Two years for non-hazardous waste, which is what used cooking oil is. That is a minimum, not a target, and the clock runs from the date of the transfer rather than the end of your financial year.
"Keep" also means "produce on request". Records in a drawer of fading thermal receipts technically exist, but an inspection where nobody can find last March is not a good inspection. This is the argument for keeping them somewhere searchable, which is why every collection we make files a note in your online account on the day.
Hazardous waste consignment notes have to be kept for three years, but that does not apply to catering oil.
A season ticket is a single transfer note covering a series of transfers, rather than one per visit. You can use one where all four of these hold:
A weekly cooking oil collection from one kitchen fits that exactly, which is why it is the normal arrangement in this trade. You still need a record of the individual collections and their quantities, which is what the register in the pack above is for.
Environmental health officers and Environment Agency officers do not usually arrive wanting a legal argument. They want to see that the chain holds together. In practice it comes down to five questions.
If you can answer all five in under two minutes, the paperwork side of the visit is over. Our duty of care checklist is the same ground in a form you can work down before they arrive.
A code copied from a general waste or a mixed recycling contract. Used cooking oil is 20 01 25. If your note says something else, somebody filled it in without looking.
The note needs a measured figure. A note with no quantity cannot be reconciled against anything, which rather defeats the purpose of keeping it.
The carrier's registered name has to match the company invoicing you and the entry on the public register. A trading name that appears nowhere official is worth a question.
They lapse. A three-year-old season ticket still sitting in a folder is not covering this month's collection, and nobody notices until an officer checks the date.
Not sure whether your current collector is registered at all? There is a two-minute check on how to check a waste carrier is registered , and the wider legal picture is in used cooking oil disposal rules .
Every collection generates a digital waste transfer note in your online account on the day, carrying the date, the litres measured in front of your staff and our registration number. You do not have to file anything, and you can download two years of records in a couple of clicks when someone asks for them.
Tell us where you are and we'll set up your collection day. No cost, no obligation, and we typically call you back within minutes.
Prefer to talk? Call or WhatsApp us on 07716 378590 and we'll sort it out in a couple of minutes.
