Environment Agency

WASTE STRATEGY REVIEW AND WASTE CRIME

Sir John Harman, Chairman, Environment Agency

When the government announced its intention to review its Waste Strategy — established only as recently as 2000 — it was expected to be a pretty light-touch review. After all, the 2000 strategy had set out long-term aims and directions which are still recognised as the right framework for waste policy. So why the need for an early review? But in the event the review became a deep and thorough consideration of how the existing strategy could be implemented and is, as a result, a significant milestone for the management of waste. It brings us face to face with the considerable practical challenges of how to improve waste infrastructure and stimulate more sustainable use of resources.

There is no doubt that change is needed. After all, for the strategy to succeed it needs all of us, at home and in work, to conserve resources and minimise the impact of waste on the environment.

The review is an important addition to the Waste Strategy because it deals with areas of policy and practice that have come into focus since the original strategy was published. To begin with, to a much greater extent than before, it recognises the interdependence of waste and other issues, notably carbon policy; it is more assured than was possible seven years ago in asserting that this issue is primarily one of resource use, not disposal; and it recognises the challenges society faces in diverting waste from landfill and increasing recycling.

We welcome in particular its increased emphasis on commercial and industrial waste through new targets and further consideration of restricting the landfilling of biodegradable wastes or recyclable materials. (We felt that the 2000 review fixated policy on the important but relatively small volumes of household waste.) We also welcome the practical focus on key materials and products.

The review also recognises the role of good regulation, both in helping encourage behaviour change and — if the market doesn’t respond rapidly enough — in addressing market failures. The last few years have seen a rapid modernisation in our approach to regulating waste, while continuing to protect the environment and public health and tackling waste crime, and this too is recognised.

Pick up the strategy and you will see that it is structured around six key areas:

• Pricing framework: the need for long-term market controls, including increasing landfill tax and allowing local authorities to introduce variable charging for household waste.
• Effective regulation: including modernising regimes, implementing a waste crime strategy and a commitment to consult on further measures to reduce the landfilling of biodegradable and recyclable waste.
• Targeting: particular materials, products and sectors.
• Investment in infrastructure: strengthening Defra’s Waste Infrastructure Delivery Programme, supporting WRAP’s market development work, ensuring that waste plans deliver and encouraging energy recovery.
• Local and regional governance: encouraging co-operation, improved performance and greater emphasis by regional development agencies and local authorities on business waste and resource management.
• A shared responsibility: seeking a culture change, requiring action by consumers and the voluntary sector. Government will be taking leadership by its own actions on public procurement and waste reduction/recycling.

The Environment Agency is a key delivery body for the strategy. We regulate the industry, advise government, provide support and data to local and regional government on waste planning and, perhaps most obviously, carry out enforcement in cases of serious environmental crime. But one of the practical considerations in implementation in this field is that there is a wide range of other delivery bodies, including Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), Defra’s Waste Implementation Programme (WIP) and Waste Infrastructure Delivery Programme (WIDP), local authorities, waste managers and waste producers. Co-ordinating and leading these efforts is in itself one of the core issues in the strategy, which introduces new governance arrangements without going as far, as some commentators had advocated, as setting up a new strategic authority.

We are pleased that the review has recognised the need to focus strategic effort at tackling waste crime. For example, it commits Defra and ourselves to arrange for a threat assessment to be carried out into the extent of the involvement of organised crime in illegal waste activity.

It might be argued by some that illegal activity in the waste sector does not give rise to the same ‘national pollution impacts’ of activities such as the release of toxic gases to the environment, major pollution incidents or global warming. However, waste crimes can and do impact on the environment and health, impact on people’s enjoyment of the environment, undermine the investment by legitimate businesses and cost-regulators, landowners and the tax payer.

In 2006 the Environment Agency and local authorities dealt with nearly one million fly-tipping incidents at a cost of £47mn to the taxpayer. Waste crime must be seen as unacceptable to everyone. The punishment must fit the crime and whilst courts are now imposing some custodial sentences, too often the fines do not begin to reflect the money that has been saved by illegal dumping.

Evidence suggests that a significant proportion of illegal waste activity can be directly linked to organised crime, because there is big money to be made out of handling waste illegally. Fans of The Sopranos will know that Tony Soprano is in ‘the waste management business’, and this is close to the mark. There are many other reasons for illegal waste activities besides profit; laziness, lack of awareness and the cost of lawful waste management. The Environment Agency’s officers therefore have to deal with the full gamut of offenders, from the terminally gormless to the downright nasty.

Given the significant role of waste in environment crime today, the Environment Agency’s enforcement activity for the coming period will prioritise waste crime. We intend to increase the amount of regulatory effort which is used to target illegal activity and poor performance, focusing on activities which cause the most significant environmental damage including the large-scale illegal dumping of waste, the illegal waste activities of organised criminals and the illegal dumping of hazardous wastes. We will target those who operate illegal sites, those who illegally dump wastes and those who export waste illegally.

It’s not all enforcement, of course; we can exemplify the best performers, support and encourage those who manage resources well; advise, educate, persuade and enforce against those who do not comply and so increasingly isolate the determined criminals, some of whom, we are aware, are continuing to run illegal waste businesses from inside prison. But all this activity requires resources, and the way in which we are currently funded means that the costs of enforcement fall largely on the taxpayer through our Grant-in Aid — which is under considerable pressure.

The export of waste has come under the spotlight recently. The UK relies heavily on export markets to process recyclable waste, and these markets play a legitimate role in international commercial trade, provided that the rules in place to protect inappropriate exports and processing abroad are adhered to. Waste crime activity in this area has been identified within the UK and elsewhere across the developed world. We have undertaken successful prosecutions, but we believe illegal activity in this area continues, increasingly in commodities such as waste electrical equipment, which has the potential to undermine the UK’s reputation and also undermines UK investment opportunity.

Most of the problems we have detected have resulted from investigations and enforcement work and relate to waste wrongly exported under ‘green list’ controls. We have carried out a programme of targeted inspections at ports resulting in five companies being prosecuted for illegal exports or causing illegal exports, with a further three cases currently under investigation. We are also in the process of discussing a control strategy that we have developed to prevent and tackle these crimes with key partners such as WRAP and Defra.

Website: www.environment-agency.gov.uk

Biography of Sir John Harman

Sir John Harman is currently Chairman of the Environment Agency, which he has served first as a Board member and then as Deputy Chairman since its inception in 1996.

A teacher by profession, he had nearly 20 years’ experience in local government including 13 years as leader of Kirklees Metropolitan Council. In 1999 he became the first leader of the Regional Assembly for Yorkshire and Humberside.

He was Vice-Chairman of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities from 1992 until the formation of the LGA in 1997, when he became a Deputy Leader of the Labour Group.

He received a knighthood in June 1997 in recognition of his services to local government and the environment. In addition to a wide range of professional interests, he is Chairman of Kirklees Stadium Development Ltd, which operates the McAlpine Stadium in Huddersfield, a Director of Energy Savings Trust, and member of the Board of Trustees for the National Coal Mining Museum. Most recently, Sir John was appointed a Trustee of Forum for the Future and to the Board of the National School of Government.