Environment Agency chair Emma Howard Boyd has praised the role of the waste management industry in efforts to improve the environment.
The comments came in a speech to a roundtable event organised by Keep Britain Tidy at Middlesex University yesterday (24 April).
Emma Howard-Boyd, chair of the Environment Agency
However, despite praising the waste industry, Ms Howard Boyd warned of the impact of ‘increasingly organised’ criminals, engaged in sophisticated activity involving waste.
Opening her speech, the Agency chair claimed that due to advances in industry and transport, people have become disconnected from their environmental impacts, contributing to problems such as litter, fly-tipping and marine plastic waste.
However, waste management businesses have an important role in addressing these problems, she suggested, adding: “Waste companies are the unsung heroes of the environmental movement – making sure all that waste which disappears from our doorsteps ends up in the right place.
“The Environment Agency regulates businesses that manage, treat, recycle, and dispose of waste.
“We work with them to make sure waste sites are well run and don’t harm people or the environment. For example, our waste permits make sure that litter doesn’t escape from landfill sites.”
Waste crime
But, she also pointed to the illegitimate businesses and individuals seeking to profit from improper waste practices, echoing recent comments by the Agency’s chief executive comparing waste criminals to the mafia.
She said: “Waste crime is increasingly organised, involving career criminals engaged in sophisticated fraud.
“It involves illegal exports, fly-tipping and burning of waste, as well as tax avoidance.
“It is no coincidence that organised waste crime is also deeply implicated in the incidence of modern slavery in the UK.”
Highlighting action that the Agency has taken to address illegal waste activities, she noted that over 800 illegal waste sites were stopped during 2017/18 – more than two per day – but over 850 more were also identified during this time.
Ending on recent environmental protests, Ms Howard Boyd says she had been ‘inspired’ by the actions taken by activists including the Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg to highlight the dangers of climate change.
“A new generation of school age international activists are demanding action for the future of the planet.
“They want their parents, teachers and politicians to take responsibility. Please don’t waste this moment. We must not let them down.“
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Source: letsrecycle.com Waste Managment
