Power in partnerships to shut down waste criminals

When people ask me what I do for a living, I tell them that I help the Environment Agency fight waste crime.

I work in a team of waste crime engagement specialists covering the whole of England and our role is to bring together partners, information and action that enables the Environment Agency to shut down waste criminals.

My work changes day to day, often evolving around meetings with partners where we discuss waste crime issues and trends. As my title suggests, I engage with lots of partners to highlight, inform, and warn them about waste crime activity we are seeing in our region. We share information about what we know and discuss what we need to do collectively to progress investigations that we are working on.

By doing this, we are better able to understand the local waste crime landscape and fill in any intelligence gaps that we have. I work with partnership forums such as rural crime networks (and many others) where we look at how to engage with landowners to share advice on what they can do to avoid being duped by unscrupulous individuals - waste criminals - looking to dump waste on their land.

Tackling the criminals who are exploiting the waste industry

I’m sure you’ll have noticed several stories in the local and national press about large scale waste dumps; tonnes of illegally dumped waste. We’ve always had illegal waste sites to investigate but these have traditionally been small outfits run by individuals who don’t know or in some cases, don’t care that they must follow rules when it comes to storing, handling, processing or disposing of waste.

Now we are dealing with large-scale operations where organised crime groups, often involved in drugs, firearms and people trafficking, are moving into the waste industry.

The offenders are dangerous individuals. The waste crimes they commit ruin lives, cause damage to places where people live, poison the environment, undercut the legitimate waste industry and cost the economy £1billion every year. Insight from respondents to our National Waste Crime Survey last year, estimated that 35% of waste crime is committed by organised crime groups.

We are in an age where criminals are exploring waste crime as an alternative way to make and launder (‘clean’) money. If the criminals are adapting, then so must we.

Traditionally, dealing with organised crime group’s has been the role of the police. We are now finding that our knowledge and experience is being sought to assist the police in investigating individuals and groups that commit other types of crime but exploit the waste industry.

The police are well versed in the tactics used by criminals in their illicit activities, however there is a shortage of waste industry knowledge and experience within many police forces, and this is where people like me come in.

Joining forces with the police

Last year I delivered awareness training to Police Intelligence Teams about waste crime , key tactics used by waste criminals and where we might be able to support their investigations e.g. site visits, regulatory visits, intelligence gathering/sharing and joint working. These sessions highlighted how, with additional training, intelligence gathering could be improved by involving Neighbourhood Policing Teams, including those officers performing roadside checks.

Neighbourhood Police Officers are the eyes and ears of a police force so equipping them with the knowledge of what to look out for and report back has been incredibly fruitful. These sessions have been so successful that I am now planning to work with Neighbourhood Policing Teams in the remaining police forces that operate in our region.

Intelligence received from one of those neighbourhood teams led to me joining an enforcement officer on a day of intelligence gathering drive-by site visits recently. These visits were arranged to determine whether “persons of interest” were carrying out waste activities and identify where the Environment Agency could enforce any environmental law and support police disruption of those activities. These drive-by’s were useful and resulted in a multi-agency raid a few weeks later at a site suspected of processing waste illegally.

Working with partners like the police and local authorities, provides a useful insight into how other organisations think and work. By sharing our thinking and pooling our resources, we can achieve much more than we could alone. Strengthening and building upon our existing relationships is something I will continue this year, starting with a waste aide memoir for police officers to refer to during roadside checks.

Help us stop waste criminals

Remember you can help too.

If you see of suspect an individual or business of illegally handling waste, report it to our 24 hour incident hotline 0800 80 70 60, or to Crimestoppers: 0800 555 111 https://crimestoppers-uk.org/give-information/forms/give-information-anonymously

https://environmentagency.blog.gov.uk/2026/03/11/power-in-partnerships-to-shut-down-waste-criminals/

seen at 14:53, 11 March in Creating a better place.