Waste crime crackdown – police-style powers for EA officers?

Respondents to the National Waste Crime Survey 2025 felt that the EA is not effective in tackling waste crime, and that the issue requires severe sanctions[3]. This has led to increased scrutiny of enforcement agencies and calls for stronger action, particularly as it is estimated that 20% of all waste crime is from illegally managed waste[4].

What does the Plan propose?

The Plan contains a comprehensive package of new measures aimed at tackling illegal waste activity through a more co-ordinated and hard-hitting response than ever before. 

It is supported by new tools, increased funding, and enhanced powers and is made up of 3 key objectives: Prevent, Enforce, and Remediate.

Objective 1 - Prevention:

Three major regulatory reforms are being progressed by Defra:

1. Moving the regulation of waste management and transport from a ‘light-touch’ registration-system into the environmental permitting regime. Penalties for offenders will increase to up to 5 years’ imprisonment.
2. Digital waste tracking will replace paper-based monitoring of waste movements.
3. Three waste permit exemptions will be removed, and seven conditions will be tightened, due to previous exploitation. Enhanced record-keeping will be required from exemption-holders and exemption limits will be imposed.  

In addition, various tools, data and capabilities for prevention are being implemented such as: increased use of enforcement notices; suspension, revocation and de-registration of permits for persistent poor performance or where intelligence suggests operators/carriers are diverting waste from the legitimate supply chain; fit and proper permit checks; seizure of vehicles; and tax-evasion measures whereby waste-permit renewals could become conditional upon applicants passing HMRC tax checks. 

Objective 2 - Enforce:

Defra states “this government is equally determined to pursue those who have committed waste crimes with every tool at its disposal”, leaving no room for ambiguity regarding the seriousness in its attitude towards enforcement. This will be achieved through various steps, to include:

• More than £50 million of funding has been allocated to the EA over the next 3 financial years to increase on the ground enforcement activity.
• Additional enforcement powers for the EA, i.e. ‘police style enforcement powers’ are being considered by Defra and the Home Office. 

Philip Duffy, Chief Executive of the Environment Agency, stated:    

• Potential powers for local authorities to issue conditional cautions, which could result in unpaid work and carrying out/covering the cost of clean-up by offenders
• A brand new ‘Operational Waste Intelligence and Analysis Unit’ is being created, combining visual imagery, financial information, criminal data and other intelligence in one place for the first time, to detect unusual activity earlier.
• Expansion of the Joint Unit for Waste Crime to 20 members of staff.
• Collaboration with HM Land Registry to access data to identify unusual and emerging waste crime patterns earlier.
• Technological developments including a new screening tool which scans HGV operator licence applications against relevant registers to identify businesses that may be carrying waste illegally, and geospatial imaging technology using drones to provide sharper, more timely intelligence on illegal waste activity; see our article here.
• Naming and shaming illegal waste operators and penalty points on the driving licences of fly-tippers.
• Informing banks and financing companies of waste criminality, which may jeopardise offenders’ business relations and financing arrangements.

Objective 3 - Remediate:

The final objective seeks to remove illegal waste sites and remediate land, as enforcement alone does not address the harm caused.

The government has committed to clearing the most egregious illegal waste sites. Criteria has been developed to objectively identify the sites with the greatest need for clearance.

On an exceptional basis, the EA will step in to clear sites where waste presents an untenable risk to the public and the environment. Criminal prosecution will still be pursued, and costs of the clearance will also be sought from the offender.

Defra will work with the insurance industry to explore access to insurance options for landowners and businesses against illegal waste dumping on their land.

Our expertise

Clyde & Co are specialists in dealing with environmental and regulatory claims, and we closely monitor developments around these topics.

For more on this subject, you can read all of our previous articles here, and if you have any questions, please contact our Safety, Health, Environment and Regulatory team.