Disposal & recycling
Disposal Certificate (Entsorgungsnachweis)
Also known as: Entsorgungsnachweis · disposal receipt · waste transfer note · proof of disposal · Begleitschein
A disposal certificate (Entsorgungsnachweis) is written proof of where and how the waste from a clearance was disposed of. It protects you as the client from liability, because under Swiss environmental law responsibility for correct disposal stays with the party that produced the waste — not with the company that hauled it away.
Why the certificate protects you
Under Swiss environmental law, responsibility for correct disposal remains with the waste producer (Abfallerzeuger) — that is, with you as the owner or the client who commissioned the work. If a company you hired dumps material illegally, that can come back to you, particularly if you picked a conspicuously cheap provider and could reasonably have known that the price did not cover proper disposal.
The disposal certificate documents that the material was handed over to a licensed facility. For hazardous waste (Sonderabfall), construction waste and commercial volumes it is effectively indispensable — without it you have nothing to show a landlord, an authority or your co-heirs.
When you should insist on one
Always ask for it when there is: hazardous waste in any relevant quantity; construction and strip-out material; a business liquidation; a clearance carried out on behalf of an authority, a property management company (Verwaltung) or a community of heirs (Erbengemeinschaft); and generally whenever you have to account to a third party for what happened to the contents.
For an ordinary private apartment clearance it is not mandatory, but it is a useful test of the provider. A company that cannot produce disposal records probably does not have an orderly disposal route in the first place — and that is exactly the company whose price looks too good.
What a valid certificate has to contain
The date of handover, the receiving facility with its address, the waste type by category, the quantity in kilograms or cubic metres, and a reference to your job or invoice. For hazardous waste it must additionally carry the waste codes and the receiving facility's confirmation.
In practice you receive a bundle rather than a single sheet: weighbridge tickets (Wiegescheine) from the waste-to-energy plant, receipts from the scrap metal yard, accompanying documents (Begleitscheine) for hazardous waste and confirmations from the electronics take-back scheme.
A real example
A community of heirs (Erbengemeinschaft) has a house in Meilen cleared and asks for full documentation, because they have to account to the other heirs. They receive: weighbridge tickets from the waste-to-energy plant, receipts from the scrap metal acceptance point, accompanying documents for 47 kg of hazardous waste, receipts from electronics disposal, plus a list of the items that were resold with the prices achieved.
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Frequently asked questions about Disposal Certificate (Entsorgungsnachweis)
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