Every man and his van: “Broken” disposal licensing turns UK into dumping ground

07 Jan 2022 --- The UK’s waste disposal licensing infrastructure is “broken,” according to researchers, who last year found at least 1.82 million metric tons of waste were illegally dumped on private land or taken to illegal disposal sites.

This unregulated activity is the result of an underfunded and unenforced registration system for waste carriers throughout the country, and is costing the government around £176 million (US$238 million) in lost landfill tax, say the researchers.

Speaking to PackagingInsights, study author Ray Purdy, a former legal academic from the University of Oxford, says the lack of policing in the waste sector is causing serious harm to the UK’s society, environment and economy. 

“Our research found that while some unregistered carriers were just one-man operators trying to make a bit of money, there was strong evidence that there were connected organized networks of ‘man and van’ services across the country, some spending hundreds of thousands of pounds a year on advertising,” he explains.

“This evidence shows that organized people can make serious money.”

Licensing fraud 
At the heart of the report is the fact that the carrier, broker and dealer (CBD) registration system, which determines who can move waste in England, “does not function effectively and is being misused.” 

This issue is resulting in extensive criminal exploitation, serious waste crime, environmental damage, and lost revenue. Purdy and his colleagues found that nearly two-thirds (63%) of businesses offering to handle waste appear unregistered. 

Activist George Monbiot managed to register his dead goldfish as a waste disposer.“We have estimated that 238,741 individuals or organizations could be operating in the waste transportation sector without registration in England and 284,215 in the UK at large,” reads the report. 

Due to insufficient scrutiny of licensing registration, the names of organizations and individuals are being entered inaccurately or fraudulently, and many businesses mask their identities by simply giving their legal name as “John” or “Waste.” 

The same legal name is also often registered by different businesses, making registration checks very complicated. Some companies are not disclosing all their trading names: they register in one name but advertise in large numbers of other names. 

British journalist and environmental activist George Monbiot recently highlighted this issue by successfully registering his dead goldfish as a waste dealer. 

Government cutbacks 
The UK’s Environment Agency (EA) is decrying years of financial cutbacks, which have hindered the ability to properly regulate waste disposal businesses and bring prosecutions against criminals exploiting the system. 

Emma Howard Boyd, chair of the EA, called on the UK government last year to double funding for environmental protection, citing years of financial cutbacks that have seen grants for incident management reduced by 90% in a decade.

This slash in financial support for environmental protection is reflected in the report’s finding that only one in six local authorities in the UK still collect bin bag waste each week. 

“Collections are now often fortnightly, or in some local authorities can be three-weekly, or monthly,” says Purdy. 

“Some individuals and businesses have realized that there is an opportunity to make money from collections of household waste in the weeks that the Councils aren’t doing it and have stepped in. Air&Space Evidence uses satellite imagery to uncover illegal waste dumps.

Advertisements on online platforms show there is a multitude of bodies, from micro-business ‘man and van’ companies to enterprises that appear much larger and specialized for these types of collections, now offering household black bin bag collection services.” 

Satellite scrutiny 
In 2014, Purdy founded spin-off company Air&Space Evidence, which uses satellite imagery and algorithms to detect illegal waste dumping sites. Labeled the world’s first “Space detective agency,” the company says it can deter and catch waste crime that otherwise flies under the radar of traditional law enforcement. 

Purdy says his satellite imagery technology could be an effective answer to fighting illegal waste carrier businesses, but “persuading governments and regulatory agencies to give new technologies a go is an unbelievably slow process – we have been trying for four years.” 

He adds that the government has been reviewing and is planning to make fundamental changes to the CBD regime, but “we don’t yet know what this will look like.” 

Air&Space Evidence this month completed a project with the UK’s Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs entitled “Fly-tipping – Drivers, Deterrents and Impacts,” which assesses effective combat strategies for illegal waste dumping. 

The project is expected to be published early this year. 

By Louis Gore-Langton