Privacy

The short version

• Visitor statistics (Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity) load only if you press Accept on the cookie bar. If you press Reject or Only necessary, or do nothing, they never load. No advertising cookies.
• A search stores nothing that identifies you. What you enter is held on our server for up to two hours so the results work, then it expires.
• If you claim a listing or report a problem, we keep what you send so we can deal with it.
• Listed businesses’ details come from public registers and each business’s own website. A sole trader can ask us to remove their listing, and we will.
• We don’t sell personal information or pass it to anyone for marketing.

Who is responsible

Capital Recycle Ltd is the controller of the personal information described on this page. It is a London waste company, registered in England and Wales, company number 14062640, registered office 124 City Road, London EC1V 2NX. Who Takes Waste is a service it runs, not a separate company.

For anything on this page, write to geza.groller@whotakeswaste.co.uk.

When you search

The finder asks for a postcode or district, the waste service and, for skips and RoRos, a size. We hold what you enter on our server in a temporary session, so the search and its results work. The session is identified by a random code kept in the page itself, not in a cookie. It is not linked to your name, email address or device, and it expires after two hours. Expired sessions are deleted, at the latest within a day.

We don’t record your searches against you and we don’t build profiles of visitors. Our lawful basis is legitimate interests: running the search you asked for.

Records every website keeps

The web server that runs the site, operated by our hosting provider, records each request: the IP address, the date and time, the page address (including any link code such as ?ref=… from an email we sent), and the description your browser gives of itself. The same record is made when a listed company shows one of our badges on its own website and your browser fetches the badge image from us. We use these records only to keep the site secure and working. The hosting provider rotates them and deletes old ones automatically, and we keep none for more than three months.

Every request reaches our server through Cloudflare (see Who else handles it), which also keeps a short record of requests for security.

To slow down abuse, the forms and the listing lookup count requests per connection for an hour. They count a one-way scrambled (hashed) form of the IP address, never the address itself.

Our lawful basis is legitimate interests: keeping the site secure and available.

If you claim a listing

What we keep: your name, your role at the company, your email address, the registration number you give, the public liability insurance certificate you upload and the expiry date you give for it, how you say the website can be shown to be the company’s, the results of our checks (including whether we found a link to this site on the company’s home page), a hashed form of your IP address, and the link code if you came from one of our emails.

The insurance certificate. An account needs public liability insurance that is in force, so the claim form asks you to upload the certificate (a PDF, a Word file or a photo). A person opens it and reads it before the account is approved. The file is stored in a private folder that the website does not serve, it is seen only by us, and nothing from it is published. If the claim is rejected the file is deleted then. If the claim is approved we keep it while the account is open, and delete it within 12 months of the account closing. The same is kept when a company that is not listed asks for an account, with the company name and website it gives. If we call you back to check a claim, we call the number the company publishes, never one given in the claim.

Why: to check by hand that you can speak for the company, to contact you about the claim, and to show “Claimed by the operator on <date>” on the listing. Our lawful basis is legitimate interests: ours and the company’s in keeping its listing right, and in stopping anyone else from changing it.

How long: while the claim stands and for two years after it ends. An unsuccessful claim is kept for 12 months.

The operator login. If you manage a claimed listing, we give you a sign-in link by email, and signing in sets one cookie, wtw_op, that keeps you signed in for up to 30 days. It is needed for the login and does nothing else. What you state about the company is published on its listing, labelled “stated by the operator on <date>”, and every change is logged with the previous value kept.

If you report a problem

When you report something wrong with a listing or ask for it to be removed, we keep what you write, the contact details you choose to give (they are optional), a hashed form of your IP address, and the link code if you came from one of our emails. We use it to correct or remove the listing and, if you left contact details, to reply. We keep it for 12 months after we have dealt with it. Our lawful basis is legitimate interests: keeping the directory accurate.

Feedback and ideas. The feedback form keeps your message, the page you came from, an email address if you choose to give one, and a hashed form of your IP address. We use it to improve the site and, if you left an address, to reply. It is not published. We keep it for 12 months after we have dealt with it, on the same lawful basis.

Emails

If you email us, we keep the correspondence while we deal with your message and for up to two years after.

We may email a listed company to ask it to check its listing. We send these to company addresses only, and each one says how to stop further emails. If you ask us to stop, we keep the address on a list used only to make sure we never email it again. If we email a sole trader or partnership, it is only to tell them about their listing or to check it, never marketing unless they have agreed to it.

Businesses and sole traders we list

Who Takes Waste lists waste businesses so that people can find one that serves their area and check its registration. Some listed businesses are sole traders or partnerships, and some public registers name a person as the licence or permit holder, so some of what we hold is personal information.

What we hold:

• trading name;
• the services the business states it offers and the areas it states it covers, with the page we took that from and the date we checked;
• prices the business publishes, with dates;
• its waste carrier registration, environmental permit or scrap metal dealer licence: number, status and expiry;
• the postcode district of its site;
• contact details it publishes for the business.

What we don’t show. For a business run by an individual, we don’t show the person’s name where they trade under another name, and we never show a street address. We show the postcode district and link to the public register instead.

Where it comes from:

• the public registers of waste carriers, brokers and dealers kept by the Environment Agency, SEPA, Natural Resources Wales and DAERA;
• the Environment Agency’s register of environmental permits;
• the public register of scrap metal dealer licences;
• Companies House;
• each business’s own website.

We don’t buy data, and we don’t collect it from private sources. AI software reads these sources and drafts each listing; we set the rules it follows and approve listings in batches. It makes mistakes, which is why every line shows its source and date, and why a business can claim its listing to correct it.

Why, and our lawful basis. We use this information to help people find a waste business that serves their area and to show whether it is registered or licensed. Our lawful basis is legitimate interests (UK GDPR Article 6(1)(f)): ours in running the directory, the public’s in finding a properly registered business, and the business’s in being found. We have weighed those interests against the rights of the people concerned, and you can ask us for a summary of that assessment.

Who sees it. Anyone using the site, and the AI assistant a visitor chooses if they press one of the links described under Links to AI assistants. We don’t sell it or pass it to anyone for marketing.

How long. We re-check the registers every month and each listing’s website at least every 180 days. Each registration is shown with its expiry date and the date we last checked it. We delete a listing when the business stops trading, or when we remove it at the holder’s request.

Your choices. If you are listed as an individual, you can ask what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, object to our using it, or ask us to remove it. If you are a sole trader and ask us to remove your listing, we will. Write to geza.groller@whotakeswaste.co.uk, or use “Something wrong, want this listing removed, or have a suggestion?” on your listing.

Links to AI assistants

Some pages have links that open an AI assistant in a new tab with a ready-made prompt: ChatGPT (OpenAI), Claude (Anthropic), Google AI Mode (Google), Grok (xAI) and Perplexity. Nothing goes to any of them unless you press one of those links.

What the prompt holds. On the finder: the postcode district and service you chose (never your full postcode), and the companies listed on your screen, with their coverage evidence, listing status, published price and website. These are the same details anyone can see on this site. In the footer: only a short description of Who Takes Waste. “Copy the prompt” puts the same text on your clipboard. Nothing leaves the page until you paste it somewhere.

What happens when you press one. Your browser opens the assistant’s website with the prompt in the link. ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Perplexity answer it straight away, without asking you to check it first. Claude (if you are signed in to it) and Grok put it in the message box for you to send. The provider then handles the prompt, and anything you type after it, under its own terms and privacy notice. That conversation runs under your account if you are signed in, or as a signed-out chat if you are not. We are not part of that conversation, we don’t see it, and nothing comes back to us.

What we don’t do. We don’t load any script, pixel or code from these providers because of these links, and we don’t record which link you press. Google Analytics, described under Cookies, is separate and loads only if you accept it. The link doesn’t tell the provider which page you were on, though the prompt itself names this site.

Who sends the requests. The assistant drafts quote requests. You send them yourself. Who Takes Waste sends nothing and books nothing.

Cookies

The finder, the listings and the pages for operators set no cookies. The one exception is the operator login described above (wtw_op), which is needed to keep an operator signed in. WordPress, which runs the site, sets its own cookies only for people who sign in to the site’s administration, which is us. We use no advertising or social-media cookies.

Visitor statistics, only if you accept. The first time you visit, a bar at the bottom of the page asks whether we may count visits and see how pages are used. Reject, Only necessary and Accept are the same size and one press each. Reject and Only necessary do the same thing here: neither loads any statistics, and the one necessary cookie, the company login, is set only when a company signs in. If you accept, Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity load and set their own cookies (Google Analytics: _ga and _ga_…, up to two years) (Microsoft Clarity: _clck, up to one year, and _clsk, one day). Google Analytics counts visits and pages and tells us roughly where visitors are and how they arrived. Microsoft Clarity records how a page is used: clicks, scrolling and mouse movement, replayed to us as a recording; what you type into a field is masked. Each provider sees your IP address and details of your browser. We use this to find pages that don’t work well, on the basis of your consent. If you press Reject or Only necessary, or do nothing, nothing loads and no such cookie is set. Your choice is kept in your own browser (not a cookie) and you can change it at any time with the “Cookie choices” link at the foot of the page. The scripts never run on the claim, report, sign-up and login forms or inside a company account.

Who else handles it

• Cloudflare, Inc. (USA) runs the network every visit passes through first, to protect the site from attacks and abuse. It sees your IP address and the request, and handles them under its own data processing terms, which include safeguards for transfers to the US. It adds no cookies, scripts or tracking to our pages.
• Our hosting provider runs the web server and the database for us. The servers are in Germany, which UK law treats as giving adequate protection.
• Our email provider carries email to and from us.
• Google Ireland Limited provides Google Analytics, only for visitors who accept it on the cookie bar. Google may process the data in the US under its own data processing terms.
• Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited provides Microsoft Clarity, only for visitors who accept it on the cookie bar. Microsoft may process the data in the US under its own data processing terms.
• An AI assistant you choose, only if you press one of its links (see above).
• Anyone using the site sees the listings.

We don’t sell personal information. We would disclose it to anyone else only where the law requires it. We make no decisions about people by automated means that have legal or similarly significant effects.

Your rights

You can ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, delete it or restrict how we use it, object to our using it, and, where it applies, ask for it in a form you can take elsewhere. Write to geza.groller@whotakeswaste.co.uk. It is free, and we will reply within one month.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please tell us first so we can put it right. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, telephone 0303 123 1113.

Changes to this page

When what the site does with personal information changes, this page changes first, and the date at the top changes with it.

Our terms of use set out the rules for using the site.