Officers from the Environment Agency (EA) took part in an operation in Lincolnshire on Wednesday (30 September) in an attempt to identify illegal waste traders.

Alongside officers from Lincolnshire Police, Immigration Enforcement and other agencies, the EA officers carried out checks on 46 vehicles, 13 of which carried waste as part of their business.

The operation targeted vehicle drivers who transport waste without the proper authorisation or written description of waste. The officers also checked whether carriers were transporting waste to authorised and legitimate sites where it would be handled properly.

Six of the waste-carrying vehicles stopped during the operation were advised that they needed to carry correct registration from the EA and transfer notes from the waste producer.

Waste crime poses ‘a direct threat to sustainable growth’

Senior Environmental Crime Officer Helen Silk said: “The Environment Agency wants to make sure businesses carrying waste have the proper authorisations to allow them to transport and transfer waste.

“Everyone who disposes of waste has a Duty of Care to ensure their waste is managed and disposed of correctly by the people they give it to. Waste crime has an impact on people and the environment. It blights communities and causes pollution.

“Waste being transported with no authorisations is likely to end up at unregulated sites. Such sites store waste in vast quantities and for long period of time posing significant risks to health and the environment, like fires which could lead to water and land contamination plus air pollution from smoke. Illegal waste sites are often the cause of odour and fly complaints too.

“People who manage waste illegally do not invest in appropriate safeguards. They undercut legitimate business, and pose a direct threat to sustainable growth in the waste management sector.”

Stronger response to waste crime

The EA has been seeking to promote awareness of waste crime to private landowners and the public recently, and has stressed the Duty of Care held by those paying people to dispose of their waste.

It has urged members of the public to be on the lookout for the signs of waste crime and to check that anyone being paid to remove waste is properly licenced.

Last month, the EA received funding of around £470,000 from the European Union to further develop the European Network of Prosecutors for the Environment (ENPE), which supports those prosecuting waste crime, illegal shipments of waste and industrial discharges that harm the environment.

In Northern Ireland earlier this week (29 September), Environment Minister Mark H Durkan called for a ‘significant gear change’ in the tackling of environmental crime in the country, calling for the establishment of a full-time multidisciplinary task force to clamp down on illicit waste operations.

Border regions, he said, are particularly vulnerable, with “criminals [continuing] to rob out economies of vast sums of money through the sale of illegal fuel and… [poisoning] and [polluting] our water supplies and local rivers”.

Find out about how the Environment Agency investigates waste crime.