New reforms to target waste criminals and combat dangerous
practices at waste sites were unveiled today (6 February 2023) by
Environment Minister .
The current rules in England and Wales allow certain low-risk,
small-scale waste activities to be carried out under a
registration scheme, exempt from the need to hold an
environmental permit, providing a light-touch but valuable form
of regulation.
However, criminals have used the cover of exemptions to carry out
illegal waste activities such as stockpiling large amounts of
undocumented or unsuitable waste and evading Landfill Tax in
England and Landfill Disposals Tax in Wales. These abuses are
estimated to cost the English economy £87.2 million a year.
The government confirmed plans to close these loopholes in the
Environmental Improvement
Plan, which was published last week, alongside a pledge to
seek to eliminate waste crime by 2043.
The government proposes to
remove three of the 10 waste exemptions of most concern,
covering the use of depolluted end-of-life vehicle parts, the
treatment of tyres, and the recovery of scrap metal. Illegal or
improper activity that undermined legitimate operators and posed
a risk to the environment and the public was particularly
pronounced for these exemptions. The conditions of a further
seven exemptions will also be tightened.
Environment Minister said:
Waste crime costs taxpayers tens of millions of pounds every
year. We are determined to take the fight to those shameful
criminals who seek to wreak havoc on our environment and economy.
We are clear in our commitment to eliminate this kind of illegal
activity and these reforms will prevent dishonest operators from
gaming the system and putting our health at risk.
This is just one of the measures we’re taking to tackle waste
crime – we’re also giving regulators and local authorities more
power to bring criminals to justice.
Steve Molyneux, the Environment Agency’s strategic lead on Waste
Regulation, said:
The Environment Agency is determined to make life harder for
criminals by disrupting and stopping illegal activity through
better regulation and tough enforcement action.
Today’s announcement will help us in our goal by restricting or
removing waste exemptions that are used to mask illegal waste
sites. These sites are a risk to the environment and people’s
safety, and undercut legitimate business. We will keep working
with Government and the waste industry to drive further action on
waste crime.
The Environment Agency’s regulatory compliance checks have
revealed that certain exemption types have been routinely used to
hide illegal waste activities from regulatory oversight in recent
years.
For instance, in November 2020 firefighters tackled a blaze for a
week at a site in Bradford that held an exemption allowing the
storage of tyres. The exemption was being abused and 600,000
tyres were on the site. The proposed reforms would mean a full
environmental permit would be needed for this kind of site.
The government is also planning to introduce greater
record-keeping requirements for all waste exemption holders;
impose limits and controls on how multiple exemptions can be
managed at one site; and ban the use of exemptions at a site
operating under an environmental permit, or where there is a
‘direct link’ between the exempt and permitted activity.
This follows our consultation on proposals to
tackle crime and poor performance in the waste sector.
We recently consulted on reform of the carrier, broker, dealer
regime, meaning increased background checks for firms moving or
trading waste; and on the introduction of mandatory digital waste
tracking, ensuring better record-keeping to help regulators
detect waste crime.
On top of this we are awarding councils with grants to tackle
fly-tipping, and have provided funding of over £450,000 to help
several councils purchase equipment to assist further, such as
CCTV.
The Environment Agency has today launched a National
Waste Crime Surveyto help stop criminals. They want to hear
from victims of waste crime such as landowners, insurance
companies and residents as well as from those who can provide
important information such as industry.
At present only 25% of waste crimes are reported. Don’t let the
criminals get away with it. Report anything suspicious to
Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or our 24 hour incident hotline on
0800 80 70 60.
