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Motorcycle breakers: the same clock next Thursday, and no certificate at the end

A bike comes in on a trailer with no plate, the frame number under a skin of chain lube, and a seller who says it was running last month. From next Thursday that bike is a load of waste that has to be in Defra’s system by the end of the second working day after it arrives, the same as a Mondeo. A motorbike dealer signed up with us this afternoon, which sent us back to the register to see how many of you there are.

How many of you there are

The Environment Agency’s public register of end-of-life vehicle sites had 1,515 permitted sites on it when we last pulled the whole thing, in July. Fifteen of them have motorcycle, bike or moto in the name. That is one in a hundred, and it is the reason nothing you have read about 1 October mentions you. The regulations do not mention you either. They do not mention cars. They say this, on the GOV.UK scope page: "If you are licensed or permitted to receive controlled waste, you will need to enter details of every load you receive." A bike breaker with an ATF permit is a permitted site, and a bike is a load.

The clock is the one everybody else has. Regulation 4(8) of the England regulations: "the deadline for completing the specified steps is the end of the second working day after the day on which the load of controlled waste or hazardous controlled waste is received". A bike in on Monday is due by the end of Wednesday. The day it arrives does not count. Two bikes on one trailer are two loads, unless they came from one producer as one load, in which case they are one, and the honest answer is that you decide that at the gate the way you always have.

The same code

The Environment Agency’s classification guidance gives two codes for the vehicle itself: 16 01 04* for "End-of-life vehicles - un-depolluted", which is hazardous, and 16 01 06 for "End-of-life vehicles - depolluted", which is not. The page does not say car once. A bike arrives as 16 01 04*, and the Defra receipt says so, and it stays hazardous on your site until the fuel, the oil, the brake fluid and the battery are out. Then it is 16 01 06 and a shell you can sell.

No certificate at the end, and that is the law working

Here is the one place a bike really is different. The Certificate of Destruction comes from the End-of-Life Vehicles Regulations, and GOV.UK says who they are for: "CoDs are for: passenger vehicles and light goods vehicles under 3.5 tonnes" and "3-wheeled motor vehicles". Two wheels is not on the list. A motorcycle sits outside the regulations that make a certificate, so nobody owes the last keeper one and nobody issues one.

That does not mean you skip DVLA. The same guidance: "If you depollute a vehicle not covered by the regulations, for example, a lorry, motorcycle or motorhome you still need to enter the vehicle details into the CoD system. It will automatically update the details as a notification of destruction and update the vehicle record." Same service, same log-in, which DVLA limits to "a person or company who holds a valid ATF Permit". You put the bike in, DVLA records a Notification of Destruction, and no paper comes back. If your software nags you for a certificate number on a bike, it was written for cars.

A shorter list, not a shorter duty

A bike has no airbags to fire. Most have no catalyst, and an air-cooled one has no coolant. What it does have is fuel, engine oil, brake fluid, a battery and two tyres, and until those are out it is hazardous waste with a hazardous code, on a permit that says how you store it. So the depollution list is shorter than a car’s and the record of working through it is exactly as necessary, because the code does not flip on its own.

Car against bike

What BreakerHQ does for a bike

Books it in as a bike. DVLA’s own record says "2 WHEEL" when you check the reg, and the gate moves the buttons to Bike on its own. From there the depollution list is the bike’s, not a car’s with the airbags left in to shame you. The vehicle screen says Notification of Destruction, treats telling DVLA as the finish line, and does not ask for a certificate number that will never come. The receipt Defra gets describes an end-of-life motorcycle. If you list parts on eBay, the parts list is bike parts, pinned to eBay’s Motorcycle Parts categories, not car categories with the names changed.

New this week, and it happens to matter more for bikes than for anything else on four wheels: a frame number box at the gate. A bike with no plate books in on its frame number, the Defra receipt carries the frame number as the reference, and a tap checks the frame number with DVSA and shows you which plate they hold for it. A frame that belongs to a different plate shows up in amber before you have taken the seat off.

Two honest limits. We do not send the Notification of Destruction. DVLA has no way in for software, so you do it on their service with your permit and we record that you did. And we have stood at a great many car gates and very few bike ones, so if a screen says something that is wrong for a bike, tell us and it will be fixed before the next one comes in.

Set up your yard now

The bike on the trailer with no plate still has a frame number under the chain lube. From next Thursday that is enough to book it in, report it, and prove it was yours to break.