A seller brings copper, lead and a bit of cable in one van. Is that one Defra receipt or three?

One receipt with three waste items. Schedule 1 of the Digital Waste Tracking regulations asks, "for each waste code recorded", for the total weight under that code and whether it is estimated or actual, so a load of several metals is one record with a line per code. BreakerHQ sends it that way: one movement, one item per material, and Defra accepted the shape in its integration environment before it shipped.

Does the price I paid go to Defra?

No. Nothing in the Digital Waste Tracking regulations asks for money, and BreakerHQ never puts a price on the wire. The price is your own figure for the ticket. The Scrap Metal Dealers Act asks you to keep a copy of the cheque or the transfer receipt, which stays with your bank.

Is a passport enough to check the seller?

Not on its own. The 2013 verification regulations accept a photocard driving licence, which carries the address, or a passport together with a bank statement, council tax letter or utility bill dated within three months. BreakerHQ says so on the chip, "Passport + address proof seen", and asks for one photo of both.

Can I sign the transfer note before the load reaches the gate?

Yes, and for a collection that is the right order, because the note is signed at the transfer. Sign it at the door, with or without signal. When the load is booked in, pick it under "Signed at the door" and the gate fills the materials, the weights and the ID check from it, and links the note to the receipt.

I am a scrap merchant on a T9 exemption, not a permit. Does the 1 October duty apply to me?

The regulations name the operator of a permitted facility. A registered exemption is not a permit, and the regulations do not name exempt sites in this phase. An ATF with a scrap desk is a permitted site, so its scrap desk is in scope on the same clock as its cars. If you are not sure which paper you hold, that is the first question to settle.

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5 October 2026

One ticket, three metals. A scrap desk’s paper pad, read against the Act, and what the ticket holds now.

A scrap desk sent us a photograph of its pad on Monday 5 October 2026. Red header, the firm’s name, seventeen rows with the waste code printed down the left, and three of them filled in by hand: copper pipe, copper tanks, lead, with a weight and a price on each and a total at the foot. Name, a date in the telephone box, a reg. The ask was one sentence: can the app do one ticket with several things on it. It could not, and it was worth asking why a pad from a print shop had the shape right and we did not.

What the pad already knew

The pad is the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 2013 with the section numbers rubbed off. Section 13 says the dealer must record "the description of the metal, including its type (or types if mixed), form, condition, weight", then "the date and time of its receipt", then "the registration mark" of the vehicle it came in on, then "the full name and address" of the person it came from, then "the full name of the person who makes the payment acting for the dealer". A row per metal is "types if mixed". The reg box is 13(2)(c). The date box is half of 13(2)(b), because the Act wants the time as well.

Two boxes on the pad were empty on this one, and both are the Act’s. Address, which is the other half of 13(2)(d). And the copy of the ID, which 13(3) asks for in so many words: "the dealer must keep a copy of any document which the dealer uses to verify the name or address of that person". The pad has no box for a photograph. That is not the pad’s fault. It is paper.

One more thing about the pad, said once. Fifteen of its seventeen rows are pre-printed 19 12 02, the code for ferrous metal out of a treatment plant, including the copper. That is a conversation for whoever printed it, not for the gate.

What Defra wants from the same van

Regulation 4(1) of the Digital Waste Tracking regulations applies "when the operator of a permitted facility receives controlled waste", and copper pipe is controlled waste the same as a Mondeo is. The regulation does not say car anywhere. For what to record, Schedule 1 paragraph 14 is the sentence that matters here: "For each waste code recorded under paragraph 13, (a) the total weight of the controlled waste recorded under that waste code, including (i) the unit of measurement used, and (ii) whether the weight is estimated or actual".

For each waste code. The van is one receipt, and the receipt has a line per code, each with its own weight. Which is the pad again, minus the price column, because nothing in those regulations asks what you paid. The same clock applies as for cars: the end of the second working day after the day the load arrived.

The passport question

Section 11 says you "must not receive scrap metal from a person without verifying the person’s full name and address", and the 2013 verification regulations say what counts. A photocard driving licence carries name, photograph and address, so it does the whole job. A passport carries the name and the face and not the address, so it needs a second document for that, a bank statement, a council tax letter or a utility bill dated within three months. A chip that says "Passport seen" and nothing else is recording a check the regulations would not accept. Ours said that until Monday afternoon.

The cash line

Section 12: "A scrap metal dealer must not pay for scrap metal except (a) by a cheque which under section 81A of the Bills of Exchange Act 1882 is not transferable, or (b) by an electronic transfer of funds". The pad has a price column and no box for how. The Act wants the cheque copy or the transfer receipt kept, and the name of whoever paid on the yard’s behalf. The price itself is your figure, not the Act’s.

The pad’s boxes, read against section 13, and where each one lives now. The two marked rows are the boxes the pad left blank.
On the pad	In the Act	On the ticket now
A row per metal, with its weight	Section 13(2)(a): type, or types if mixed, and weight	A line per material on the ticket, one Defra item each
Price per row, total at the foot	The Act asks for the cheque copy or the transfer receipt, not a price	Price per line and the total, kept, never sent to Defra
Name	Section 13(2)(d): full name and address	Name on the receipt
Address, left blank on the pad	Section 13(2)(d), the other half	Address and telephone, held apart from the receipt, every look logged
Vehicle reg	Section 13(2)(c): the registration mark of the vehicle it came in on	The delivery vehicle reg, which Defra wants too
Date	Section 13(2)(b): the date and time of receipt	The time of arrival, stamped on the device
Nothing for the ID	Section 13(3): a copy of the document used to verify	A photo of the licence at the gate, owners and admins only, removed after three years
Nothing for who paid	Section 13(2)(e): who made the payment for the dealer	Who paid, how, and the transfer or cheque reference

What BreakerHQ does, and does not do

From today a scrap ticket is one load with a line per material: the chip, the weight, and a price if you want it on the ticket. Add another material, as many as the van holds. It goes to Defra as one receipt with one item per line, and that shape was sent to Defra’s test environment and accepted before it went anywhere near your gate. The seller’s address and telephone are taken at the gate and held apart from the receipt, read only through a logged action, and removed when the three years in section 15 have run. The licence photo is taken at the gate too, owners and admins only, every look written down, gone on the same day. Who paid, how, and the transfer or cheque reference sit on the receipt. And the note can be signed at the seller’s door first, then picked at book-in, so a collection is signed where the transfer happened.

Three things it does not do. It does not hold your cheque copy or your bank’s receipt, which stay with your bank. It does not let you change the price after Defra has accepted the load, because the price never went to Defra and a correction path for it is still to come. And it does not answer the first question for a standalone merchant, which is whether you hold a permit or a T9 exemption, because the regulations name permitted facilities and we would rather you read that line yourself than take our word for it.

Open the yard

The pad will stay on the desk. It is a good pad. It just had two empty boxes the Act was going to ask about, and the ticket now has them filled.