The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) has held its first waste crime conference to bring together key agencies and organisations to look at the scale and extent of waste crime in Scotland, and how to tackle it.

Held at The George Hotel in Edinburgh, the Environmental Crime Taskforce Conference 2014 was organised by SEPA on behalf of the Environmental Crime Taskforce (ECTF) – which was set up by the Scottish Government and consists of SEPA, the Scottish Government, Police Scotland, Solace, HMRC and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) – to bring together a range of representatives from the waste and judicial sectors to discuss potential intervention opportunities and preventative actions.

Along with feature presentations from SEPA, Police Scotland, the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM), the Scottish Environmental Services Association (SESA), Eunomia Research & Consulting, Zero Waste Scotland, and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives, the conference hosted a plenary session featuring members of the ECTF.

Delegates heard that the ECTF has helped ‘raise the veil on the issue of environmental crime’ and this year has shut down three organisations for illegal activity. It has also reportedly removed 20,000 tonnes of illegal waste and interviewed 200 people on suspicion of illegal activity since its inception in 2011.

Smarter Regulation of Waste in Europe – LIFE SMART waste project

However, ECTF Chair and Executive Director of SEPA Calum MacDonald (pictured, right) said that more needed to be done to ‘better understand the ways to disrupt, dismantle and deter criminality in the waste sector’ as criminals are getting better at hiding their tracks.

As such, he announced that SEPA will lead a new project funded through the European Commission LIFE Programme, which will tackle and improve understanding of how illegal waste markets behave and how to tackle this criminal behaviour.

The ‘Smarter Regulation of Waste in Europe – LIFE SMART waste’ project, which will also involve Natural Resources Wales, The Association of Cities and Regions for Recycling and Sustainable Resource Management (ACR+), and the Brussels Institute for the Management of the Environment, will enable environmental bodies to set intelligence objectives around shared areas of concern, then work together identify and tackle illegality.

The project will continue until May 2019 and will:

• establish a collaborative intelligence hub with common rules, objectives, security protocols, staff, governance and data management, which could potentially be used by enforcement agencies throughout Europe;
• develop a waste crime intelligence gathering strategy and undertake investigations to fill any existing intelligence gaps;
• create and pilot ‘innovative tools and approaches’, such as a new waste market diagnostic tool that can be used by agencies to understand competitive behaviour in waste businesses and market trends that lead to illegal waste issues;
• deliver collaborative and innovative national and trans-national interventions to help tackle waste crime; and
• make recommendations for policy and legislative interventions at a national and European level.

Collaborative works is ‘key’

MacDonald said: “Crime in the waste industry is a growing problem in Scotland, as it is in other parts of the world. Waste streams that are of low quality and value, or are difficult to treat, persistently attract criminal elements that profit at the expense of the environment and legitimate operators.

“Good work is already being done in Scotland to identify those responsible and break the supply chains, but we must adapt as fast as the criminals do. Waste is a global resource, and it needs a response that works across borders. By coming together with experts from across the UK and Europe, including those legitimate operators who are seeing their businesses damaged by this criminal element, we have a valuable opportunity to share experiences and examine ways to combat this serious threat.”

SEPA Chairman David Sigsworth also highlighted the importance of inter-agency working during the conference, and announced that SEPA intelligence staff will be embedded in the Scottish Crime Campus at Gartcosh.

He said that “only by working together” could Scotland become a “hostile environment for criminals to operate in”.

Partnership working was also held up as ‘key’ by Northern Ireland’s Minister for the Environment, Mark H Durkan, who has previously promised a ‘fundamental change’ in how waste is managed in his country, following a ‘sobering’ report into illegal dumping. He said: “Waste crime is a challenge, and close collaboration is key to eradicating it. Due to the land border on the island of Ireland, we face particular challenges with regards to waste crime. These include fuel laundering and its wastes, illegal dumping and the regulation of transfrontier waste shipments.

“To be effective in our fight against waste crime, we will need to share experience, expertise and intelligence north/south, east/west, and on an international basis."

In his closing comments, Scottish Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead said that he looked forward to “seeing the fruits” of this collaborative working that would “challenge those breaking the law”, especially as he believes that “Scotland’s magnificent environment is one of [its] greatest assets”.

Find out more about the cost of waste crime and the Scottish Government’s work to crack down on it.