E-waste targeted in EA-led global initiative

The Global Crime Group aims to better organise exchanges of information between environment agencies worldwide to help crackdown on criminal organisations purchasing and exporting electrical waste for disposal.

The group's aim is to tackle an international problem with an international response

 
Lord Smith, chair, Environment Agency

It involves the EA working alongside environmental crime investigation units in North America and Europe, including the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Dutch Environment Agency VROM.

Lord Chris Smith, chairman of the Environment Agency, branded the current practice of e-waste dumping “unacceptable” and said “the group's aim is to tackle an international problem with an international response”.

He added: “Investigations have found that each year thousands of tonnes of waste electrical equipment are shipped from Europe and America to developing countries to be stripped down – often by children under appalling conditions – to extract valuable metals such as gold, copper and aluminium.”

The Environment Agency, through its National Environment Crime Team, is currently conducting eight separate investigations into the export of e-waste and has made 12 arrests to date.

Targets

One of the key elements of the new global initiative is the targeting of so-called ‘waste tourists,' who enter the UK as tourists with the intention of coordinating the purchase and export of containers full of waste. Due to their brief stays in the UK, the EA said that it was difficult to bring ‘waste tourists' to justice.

In addition, the INTERPOL Group will also conduct enquiries via an international task force to help ensure that countries such as Nigeria, Ghana and those in the Far East are not turned into dumping grounds for electrical waste.

The Environment Agency-led initiative has already received praise from both the US and Canadian governments during recent international meetings.

And, Lord Smith and the EA's chief executive, Paul Leinster, met with leading figures in the US EPA earlier this month to discuss a number of issues including waste, and agreed to worl closely on intelligence-led operations against illegal waste activities in the future.