Digital Waste Tracking API

Digital Waste Tracking (DWT) is a UK cross-government programme to build a single digital service for tracking waste movements, ultimately replacing paper-based waste transfer notes (WTNs). Its main aims are to reduce waste crime and misclassification, improve data on how waste moves domestically to support the transition to a circular economy, and cut the administrative burden of the current fragmented, paper-based system.

To support this service, the DWT team is developing an API which will integrate with third-party solutions to create an optimised service that works for all parties, including producers, brokers, carriers/drivers and receivers of waste.

This hub includes all the current documentation relating to the API development project for software providers. It will be updated on a regular basis as the service develops.

Current status:

The first 'development milestone' of the service was Beta-1, completed in Sep/Oct 2026. This rollout tested basic API interactions in a sandbox environment to ensure proof of concept and identify potential issues.

The team is currently focused on Beta-2, with key input from software providers across a range of journey scenarios to further develop and refine the service.

Pages:

• Development roadmap
• Software provider integration guidance
• API specification (beta-2)
• Problem types: the errors the API returns, and how to handle them

Waste movement delivery events

The API will support all four significant events in the waste movement cycle:

• Arrange movement of waste (creation)
• Collection of waste (collection)
• Delivery of waste (delivery)
• Receipt of waste (receipt)