Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many and what proportion of local authorities currently use digital waste tracking services.

The Digital Waste Tracking Service goes live from April 2026 for waste receivers, with requirements to digitally track waste received becoming mandatory in October 2026.

Waste operators currently use multiple systems – some paper based and others digital - to collect certain elements of waste tracking data. By introducing digital waste tracking, data will be collected centrally in near real time, making it much more difficult for rogue operators to compete in the industry and commit waste crime.

As part of our user research, it has been shown that the large majority of local authority waste disposal and waste collection authorities use third party contractors to manage waste in their areas, even if they are the holder of the environmental permit. As such it is difficult to quantify the number of local authorities that currently run their services in-house.

From April 2027, subject to funding, Digital Waste Tracking will onboard other waste operators including carriers which will provide an end to end view of how waste moves through the system.