The Environment Agency’s (EA) beefed up approach to tackling waste crime has resulted in a rise in prosecutions according its 2011-2012 report. This has important implications for businesses and individuals involved in waste management.
The EA’s remit is to “protect and improve the environment…and apply the environmental standards within which industry can operate”. An important part of this concerns waste storage, transportation and disposal.
To achieve its goals the EA is taking a robust approach to offenders.
The Agency’s 2011-12 Waste Crime Report
The EA’s 2011-12 waste crime report addresses the efforts it has made to tackle serious waste crime; defined as the deliberate breaking of the law by people who fail to manage, transport or dispose of waste correctly.
In 2011-12, 759 illegal waste sites were stopped, meaning closed down or moved to legal compliance; successful prosecutions rose to 335, a year on year increase; the number and scale of fines for waste crimes increased; and there were 26 confiscation orders under the Proceeds of Crime Act, totalling £2,245,494. The highest single order was £881,513.
The EA aims to send a strong message to illegal operators about the consequences of waste crime and to underline its determination to ensure serious crime doesn’t pay and put waste criminals out of business.
The Drive for Prosecutions
The reason for the increase in prosecutions is a new, much tougher approach by the EA to tackling waste crime. Within the framework of UK environmental law, the EA has adopted police methods including gathering information and developing intelligence, so it can react to the evolution of environmental crime and target its activities.
The EA invested £17.4m in the enstablishment of a national team to provide direction and specialist support and dedicated area teams to undertake investigations.
Intelligence and Community Action
Key elements contributing to the increase in prosecutions are investigative and intelligence activities co-ordinated on a local, regional and national basis. These combine with fast reactions and interventions by the EA taskforce and extensive and ongoing co-operation with local and national police, and many other national and local agencies. The EA also invites the public and communities to report waste crime directly to them.
With these resources and approaches the Agency can produce “waste trails” with which it can trace a “disposal route” from the point of collection to multiple illegal waste sites around the country and thereby produce evidence for a successful prosecution of waste crime.
Conclusion
The message of the EA report is that businesses involved in the illegal storage, transport, export or disposal of waste will be targeted and prosecuted, and that the courts can deprive criminal offenders of the assets that they have made through crime.
However, the Agency does emphasise that it works with operators so that they understand their legal obligations and that it also uses approaches such as stop notices and injunctions and bail conditions to stop illegal activities. Also the Agency uses a “waste stream approach” to understand waste cycles and identify the most appropriate places in the chain for intervention.
The Agency’s priorities going forward are to reduce the number of illegal waste sites; reduce the scale of illegal waste exports; reduce illegal dumping and target repeat offenders. It is therefore likely that prosecutions will continue to rise together with the scale of financial confiscations.
If your business operates in the waste sector or is otherwise caught by waste legislation, contact Stephensons on 01616 966 229.