Serious pollution incidents from permitted and exempt waste management activities rose by 57% in the past year, the Environment Agency Chief Regulator’s report finds.
The Environment Agency recorded 146 serious pollution from permitted and exempt waste management activities at 50 sites in 2024, a 57% increase compared with 93 incidents in 2023.
The waste sector account for 23% of serious pollution incidents, the highest number of incidents in 2024 compared to other sectors that the Environment Agency regulates.
The Environment Agency’s 2025 survey estimates that only 27% of all waste crimes are reported to the regulator.
According to the report, the Environment Agency stopped 743 Illegal waste sites, of which 143 were high risk, against a target of closing 90 high risk illegal waste sites, in 2024 to 2025.
The regulator’s report also found that the Environment Agency prevented the illegal export of 79,713 tonnes of waste in 2024. The total estimated revenue to the UK economy from the waste it prevented and stopped was around £8.4 million.
Chief Regulator at the Environment Agency Jo Nettleton says the regulator are working with government, industry, and stakeholders to deliver the Waste Regulatory Reforms Programme.
The reforms being progressed include waste exemptions, changes to the carrier, broker, dealers system, and digital waste tracking.
Writing in the report, Nettleton says: “These will introduce robust regulation to help disrupt waste crime and ensure the right waste goes to the right place.”
“This is a fundamental step towards a more sustainable, circular economy.”
The report comes after a House of Lords Inquiry that found it was 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.
The Environment Agency has also faced criticism for its handling of an incident near Kidlington, Oxfordshire, after several hundred tonnes of waste was dumped near the River Cherwell over the summer.
Circular Economy Minister Mary Creagh has also come under criticism for claiming that the government ‘inherited a whole system failure in the waste industry, from end to end, with failures at every level. That is why there has been an epidemic of illegal fly-tipping’.
The Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM) challenged the minister’s comments, saying they misrepresented the legitimate waste industry and deflected blame away from the perpetrators of waste crime.
Seeking to clarify Creagh’s comments, a spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra), told Circular Online: “This government values the hard work of the waste management industry in supporting our shared ambition to transition to a circular economy.”
“Their important work is undermined by the activities of waste criminals, who harm the environment, economy and communities. We are committed to tackling this criminality and delivering much-needed reform to the system as a whole.”
A wider perspective
Commenting directly on the report,CIWM’s Director of Policy, Communications and External Affair, Dan Cooke, said: “Whilst it’s natural for a regulator’s report to draw attention to the problems in any sector requiring their priority focus – it’s also worth considering a wider perspective.
“In our case the focus of the regulator should rightly fall on those sites handling waste or secondary resources that are causing real or potential environmental impacts, and in particular illegal sites and criminals handling waste material that has ‘leaked’ from the regulated sector, and that causes anxiety and problems for communities, the environment, our members and the economy.
“There are 9,765 sites that are licensed or permitted to handle waste across England. Of these, just 50 sites caused 146 serious pollution incidents. This represents 0.5% of the total. Another 351 sites (3.6%) required regulatory intervention to stop poor practice. However, the Agency recognises a high level of general compliance, which should give cause for pride in what the sector does, day-in, day-out.
96.4% of waste sites are well-managed and performing strongly, protecting human health, the environment and providing vital services enabling local economies to thrive.
“96.4% of waste sites are well-managed and performing strongly, protecting human health, the environment and providing vital services enabling local economies to thrive. Operated by dedicated professionals, these sites are striving to reduce, recycle, and recover post-consumer or post-industrial materials, to drive greater resource efficiency and resilience, and form the bedrock of a more circular economy for the UK.
“Of those serious incidents, a good proportion were for odour, noise, dust and smoke from a very small number of sites – with just 4 sites responsible for most of the odour incidents from landfills.
“The Agency also stopped 743 illegal sites from operating, successfully secured 34 prosecutions resulting in £320,000 in fines (remember, waste crime costs our economy around £1bn per year) and 37 custodial sentences.
“All power to the regulators elbow – we will continue to support and work closely with the Environment Agency and other regulators to drive professional and performance standards up across this dynamic sector, and to disrupt and drive criminality out wherever possible.
“But we’ll also press Government and regulators to use good light-touch regulation to support the ongoing success of our sector and its contribution to growth, jobs and the (circular) economy.
“We’ll also press for mechanisms to enable yet more resources and focus to be properly targeted on those very small numbers of persistently poor performers and especially on those intent on illegal and criminal behaviour, that continue to undermine all that the responsible and highly professional 97%+ of our sector strive for.”