Is this property near a former landfill — and what went into it?
Check any England postcode against 19,851 historic landfill sites recorded by the Environment Agency: distance, waste types, dates and operators.
Try: SE2 9BS (Thamesmead) · E5 0RB (Clapton) · M11 2AA (Manchester)
England has 19,851 recorded historic landfill sites — closed tips from the licensing era, mapped by the Environment Agency (October 2025 revision). Being near one is normal: about 55% of England postcodes have at least one within 1km. This tool tells you what's there, what was deposited, and what questions are worth asking — calmly, from the source data.
1. Search a postcode
We check every recorded site within 1km of the postcode centre — measured to the site boundary, not just its middle.
2. See what went in
Waste types from inert rubble to special (hazardous) waste, with plain-English explanations of what each means.
3. Know what to ask
A calm read on what the result means for a purchase, a garden or a story — and when a formal environmental search is worth it.
What this data does — and doesn't — cover
- Licensed-era records only. Waste licensing began in 1974. Older tips — especially small pre-war ones — are incompletely recorded, so absence from this data does not mean no landfill ever existed here.
- Not the contaminated-land register. Councils hold a separate register of land determined as contaminated. A historic landfill entry is not a contamination determination, and vice versa.
- Boundaries are indicative. Digitised at 1:10,000 scale; some are buffers around a point rather than surveyed edges.
- Not a substitute for a formal environmental search. If you're buying, your conveyancer's environmental search checks this and several other sources.
EA Historic Landfill dataset, October 2025 revision. More on the methodology page.