A House of Lords inquiry has said it’s difficult to conclude that ‘incompetence’ at the Environment Agency has not been a factor in failures to prevent and effectively prosecute waste crime.
The Lords also said they were ‘deeply concerned’ about what the inquiry found was the ‘inadequacy’ of the current approach to tackling waste crime.
As part of the inquiry, the Lords heard from a range of witnesses including community groups, the Environment Agency, a Government Minister and officials, Police and Crime Commissioners and waste management specialists.
Witnesses expressed concerns regarding the effectiveness of the Environment Agency’s practices, the amount of funding available for it to tackle waste crime, and how it uses the funding available to it.
The Lords were also critical of the police, saying they were ‘unimpressed’ with the lack of interest they showed in tackling waste crime.
During the inquiry, the Lords heard that over 38 million tonnes of waste – enough to fill Wembley Stadium 35 times – is being illegally dumped each year mainly by established organised crime groups involved in drugs, firearms, money laundering and modern slavery.
The Government and other agencies must act now on our recommendations, including starting an independent review.
The House of Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee has now written to the Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds to explain the findings of their inquiry into waste crime. In the letter, the Lords said waste crime is ‘critically under-prioritised’.
As part of the inquiry’s recommendations, the Lords have called on the government to urgently commission an independent review of the current approach to waste crime.
The committee is also calling on the government to establish a single telephone number and online tool for the public to report waste crime.
The inquiry found that the Environment Agency’s Joint Unit for Waste Crime ‘appears ineffective’. The Unit is a multi-agency taskforce that was established five years ago to lead efforts to tackle serious and organised waste crime.
The Lords’ recommended that the Joint Unit for Waste Crime improve collaboration between bodies with responsibility for waste crime at the local level, especially policing and local government.
The inquiry also recommended that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) should develop interim targets with a comprehensive set of metrics to measure progress published quarterly.
Commenting on the findings, Baroness Sheehan, Chair of the House of Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee, said: “Despite the scale and seriousness of the crimes, raised by the members of the public in many cases, we have found multiple failings by the Environment Agency and other agencies from slow responses to repeated public reports to a woeful lack of successful convictions.”
“The Government and other agencies must act now on our recommendations, including starting an independent review. There is no time to waste.”
The inquiry also found that the Environment Agency is ‘heavy-handedly regulating permitted waste sites’ and pursuing their operators for infractions that ‘pale into insignificance’ compared to some of the serious and organised waste crime occurring outside the regulatory framework
Earlier this year, Circular Online spoke to environmental law experts about when a landowner liable for waste crimes committed by their tenant.
Responding to the inquiry, the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management’s (CIWM) Dan Cooke said the government must treat tackling waste crime as a ‘definitive sector and societal priority’.
CIWM said it largely agreed with the findings from the inquiry, which concluded that serious and organised waste crime is currently under-prioritised relative to its significant impact, and that a root-and-branch review is required to tackle waste crime more effectively.