The reference comes in a ‘Serious and Organised Crime Strategy’ published today by the Home Office, as an example of partnership working.
According to the document, the Environment Agency is setting up an “intelligence sharing concordat” with the industry to tackle illegal waste carries.
Costs
“Through co-designing our approach with the private sector we can ensure serious and organised criminals are less able to target businesses or exploit enablers to facilitate criminality, including corrupt or complicit insiders,” the Home Office document states.
The strategy also notes that the costs of organised crime to the UK – of at least £37 billion annually – has been boosted, in part, by the inclusion of additional crime types, such as organised waste crime.
This, along with changes in methodology and the inclusion of cyber-dependent crime against individuals, has contributed to an increase of £13 billion since the 2013 estimate.
Defra
Defra is understood to be currently preparing its own research into serious and organised waste crime. In June, environment secretary Michael Gove launched a three month review to “beef up” the government’s approach in its fight to “tackle the scourge of waste crime” (see letsrecycle.com story).
However, Defra is working on its waste crime review which is likely to inform aspects of the forthcoming Resources and Waste Strategy. It is expected that one focus in the strategy will be on tightening up the current rules around waste carriers licensing.
The review into waste crime will be published later this year and will supplements the overarching Home Office strategy, concentrating on organised criminal involvement in waste crime, characteristics of criminal enterprises, intelligence gathering and enforcement effectiveness. It will consider fly-tipping and smaller waste crime incidents only in connection to the review’s understanding of organised criminality.
There have also been calls from the industry for regulatory measures to crack down on waste crime to be included in the Waste and Resources Strategy (see letsrecycle.com story).
Speaking earlier this year, Lizzie Noel, a non-executive director at Defra, who is chairing the Defra review work, said: “This review is an opportunity to properly understand the extent of this criminal activity, and I look forward to working with a range of partners to ensure our response is robust and effective.”
[Updated 2 November 2018 to clarify Defra review work]
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