The Environment Agency could soon receive police style powers to tackle waste crime, prompting illegal tippers to hide their paperwork and every wheelie bin to request legal representation.
The Government is considering extending powers under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, the Proceeds of Crime Act and other legislation to the agency and its enforcement officers. This forms part of a zero tolerance approach to fly tipping and illegal waste sites, an impressive level of seriousness to apply to a sofa abandoned beside a hedge.
The proposed powers would let officers intervene earlier, pursue organised gangs and disrupt their finances. The clipboard, having spent years asking where a load came from, may soon be asking where the yacht came from too. Somewhere, a suspicious skip has begun deleting its browser history.
PACE and POCA are not television detectives. They are legal frameworks with the sort of initials that suggest two officers arriving at a lay by just as a man explains that the entire van of plasterboard belongs to his aunt. Under the plan, enforcement could follow the money until it reaches a surprisingly expensive patio.
The announcement says the Joint Unit for Waste Crime has expanded to 20 specialists, including former police officers, intelligence analysts and financial investigators. That is enough people for a small dinner party, although nobody should bring a wheelie bin as a guest unless they are prepared to discuss its offshore interests.
The Government also puts the annual cost of waste crime to the economy at £1 billion. A dumped fridge is therefore no longer merely an eyesore. It is a national financial event with a door, a light and a terrible relationship with local authority collection schedules.
Any new laws would need parliamentary time, so nobody should expect an officer to interrogate a crisp packet under a tiny desk lamp tomorrow. The proposal does signal that waste crime is being treated as serious organised crime. The rubbish has noticed and is already trying to look less organised.
The next phase may involve banks and finance companies being told about suspected waste criminality. At last, illegal dumping can experience the full modern economy: rubbish deposited in a field, accounts reviewed by compliance and a guilty sofa denied a business loan. The country has finally found a way to make fly tipping sound like a failed fintech.
Source: GOV.UK.
