A project undertaken by the Environment Agency to tackle waste crime produced potential combined benefits of over £29 million, an evaluation has found.
And, waste crime was also in the spotlight in Scotland this week, with the International Criminal Police Organization – INTERPOL – recognising two international initiatives to tackle environmental crime.
A two year project undertaken by the Environment Agency to tackle waste crime produced potential combined benefits of over £29 million, the Agency reports
The £29 million benefits figure came in an evaluation by the Environment Agency and consultant Ricardo, published today (1 December), as part of the Agency’s Waste Crime Intervention and Evaluation (WCIE) project – which ran for two years.
The evaluation also found that for each £1 invested, at least £5 worth of potential benefits were identified.
Funding
In March 2014, the government allocated £5 million from the Landfill Communities Fund to the Environment Agency to set up the WCIE project; an additional £800,000 was made available to the project by HM Treasury in 2015.
The WCIE project tackled 3 priority areas: reducing the risk from illegal waste sites (£3.1 million funding); reducing the mis-description of waste (£1.9 million funding); reducing the illegal export of waste (£800,000 funding).
According to the Agency, the biggest proportion of savings were in the form of tax receipts (£23.5 million), followed by avoided harm to the environment and society (£4.6 million). Within this total, businesses could make additional profits of £726,000, generated from additional revenue of £14.5 million.
An estimated 530 extra illegal waste sites, holding 429,000 tonnes of waste, were stopped.
The Agency said: “Stopping these sites and diverting waste into the legitimate waste industry led to estimated benefits of £10.5 million to legitimate businesses, government, society, and the environment.”
Mis-described waste
And, the Agency said its work identified 630,000 tonnes of potentially mis-described waste. This led to 63 sites being referred to HM Revenue and Customs for tax investigations with potential benefits of at least £18 million.
(l-r) Edwin Lakerveld, director Intelligence and Investigation Agency on Environmental Crime, Joe Poux, chair of INTERPOL’s Pollution Crime Working Group, Justin Winters, executive director of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, Martin Valenti, head of strategic initiatives at Scottish Environment Protection Agency
The project prevented an estimated 191 additional shipping containers containing 4,000 tonnes of waste from being illegally exported.
“Stopping this activity led to potential benefits of at least £400,000 to the UK – not accounting for the benefits to receiving countries. It is estimated that up to 480 further shipping containers containing 10,500 tonnes of waste were prevented from being exported through the project’s direct work with industry and its deterrent effect,” the Agency said.
The Agency has also highlighted its ongoing work with HMRC to tackle the mis-description of waste and potential Landfill Tax fraud, which the Agency said could yield significant revenue for HM Government.
Leonardo DiCaprio
Meanwhile, in Scotland, the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation (LDF), established to help protect the world’s wild places and endangered species, has been recognised for its efforts on the issues of environmental crime.
The award for Outstanding Achievement was awarded to the foundation at the inaugural award ceremony of the INTERPOL Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Committee (ECEC), hosted by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) in Edinburgh.
Pollution Working Group
“Global partnerships that spark new dialogues and innovative opportunities are valuables tools that will help us to reduce our overuse of resources, coordinate our efforts to eradicate environmental crime and create prosperity for the people of Scotland through environmental innovation.”
Terry A’Hearn
SEPA
A second award, for Best Enforcement Initiative, was picked up by the Pollution Working Group of the ECEC for its 30 ‘Days of Action’ operation, which has been described as the largest-ever global operation targeting the illegal transport and disposal of waste. Police, customs, border, and environmental agencies from 43 countries participated, as well as non-governmental partners such as IMPEL and the UN Environment REN project for chemicals and waste in Asia.
Commenting on the awards, Terry A’Hearn, chief executive of SEPA said: “Scotland is at the forefront of meeting the environmental challenges of the 21st century and has helped create the conditions for the World Forum for Natural Capital and INTERPOL to be hosted simultaneously in Edinburgh.
“Global partnerships that spark new dialogues and innovative opportunities are valuables tools that will help us to reduce our overuse of resources, coordinate our efforts to eradicate environmental crime and create prosperity for the people of Scotland through environmental innovation.”
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