The Environment Agency drone squad is taking off to tackle waste crime, meaning fly tippers may soon discover that even the sky has started taking notes.
The Agency has announced an enhanced drone operation involving 33 trained pilots, with some aircraft being upgraded to carry laser mapping technology. The aim is to gather evidence at illegal dumping sites. Britain has moved from “who left that there?” to “the cloud has a detailed map of your van”.
The package also includes software to screen lorry licence applications. It will cross check them against waste permit and waste carrier records, allowing officers to flag suspicious operators before they begin moving waste illegally. This is bad news for criminals and excellent news for every spreadsheet that has spent years waiting to become a detective.
Linda Bin Bag, a local resident with strong views about skips, laughed at the announcement. “At last,” she said. “People dumping sofas in fields can be spotted by something smaller than a pigeon and smarter than their excuse.”
The Agency says the measures will improve surveillance, detection and investigation. That is a very British response to a mattress in a hedge: deploy a drone, produce an evidential map and send a polite letter that somehow carries the force of a small legal thundercloud.
LIDAR technology fires millions of laser points towards the ground to create highly detailed maps of illegal waste sites. Those maps can support court cases, which means the next great criminal thriller may involve a skip, a witness statement and a remarkably accurate outline of a discarded wardrobe.
The screening tool has already been trialled in East Anglia, where it helped identify a waste company that had moved its HGV operations to evade enforcement. The software found the new operating centre within a week, proving that bureaucracy can move quickly when it is given a search box and something suspicious to type into.
For now, waste criminals have been warned. Look up. The paperwork has learned to fly, and the spreadsheet is now the only detective in Britain that can find a sofa and produce evidence.
Source: Environment Agency.
