Response to waste crime must be subject to a review, independently of the environment department Defra, the Environment Agency and HM Revenue and Customs, says a Parliamentary committee.
The Environment and Climate Change Committee called on the Government to set up a single telephone number and online reporting tool for the public to report waste crime. In a letter to Emma Reynolds, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the committee says that despite environmental, social and economic costs, put at about £1 billion a year, waste crime is being drastically under-prioritised. Baroness Sheehan, chair of the committee, complained of ‘incompetence at the Environment Agency’, and that it’s failed to pursue ‘repeated reports of serious waste crime’; and to use the powers available to it ‘to stop the mass, illegal dumping of waste’, put at 38m tonnes a year. She described herself as ‘unimpressed with the lack of interest shown by the police’. She called serious and organised waste crime ‘a subset of, and gateway to, other forms of serious and organised crime including drugs and money laundering’, and ‘low-risk, high-reward’.
Inquiry
In September and October 2025, the committee took evidence about waste crime in England, with a focus on serious and organised waste crime.
Baroness Sheehan said: “During our inquiry we heard that over 38 million tonnes of waste (enough to fill Wembley Stadium 35 times) is being illegally dumped each year mainly by established organised crime groups involved in drugs, firearms, money laundering and modern slavery. Despite the scale and seriousness of the crimes, raised by the members of the public in many cases, we have found multiple failings by the Environment Agency and other agencies from slow responses to repeated public reports (as in the case of Hoad’s Wood, Kent) through to a woeful lack of successful convictions. The Government and other agencies must act now on our recommendations, including starting an independent review. There is no time to waste.”
More in the December 2025 edition of Professional Security Magazine.
Photo by Mark Rowe: Wiltshire County Council sign against fly-tipping.
