Government announces three-pronged approach to tackle waste crime

The UK government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has launched its new waste crime action plan aimed at cutting down on both local waste issues such as fly-tipping and large-scale organised waste crime. 

The plan outlines the next steps in how the government intends to meet the commitments set out in its recently published Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP), which will see stricter penalties for waste criminals – ranging from driving penalty points to five years imprisonment – being brought in and the introduction of wider powers for local authorities and police-style powers for the Environment Agency. 

The waste duty of care places an onus on anyone who imports, produces, carries, keeps, treats, disposes of, or is a dealer or broker that has control of, controlled waste to take reasonable steps to ensure the safe management of that waste to protect human health and the environment. Failure to comply is a criminal offence. Duty holders can therefore expect the changes to result in greater scrutiny of their waste operations and a rise in enforcement action, with greater consequences for offenders.

Focused around three key strategies – prevention, enforcement and remediation – the plan confirms that the EA’s enforcement powers will be expanded, backed by new tools and additional budget. 

Regarding measures designed to prevent waste crime, these include incorporating the licensing of carriers, brokers and dealers into the environmental permitting regime under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 and focused changes to the waste exemption system, which allows operators to carry out low-risk waste activities subject to specific conditions, without holding a full environmental permit. Following concerns raised by Defra that waste exemptions are being exploited, three waste exemptions will be removed and seven others will be tightened.

The plan primarily targets waste crime in England, but its scope of preventive measures includes changes which are relevant to the UK’s devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. For example, mandatory digital waste tracking is being introduced in phases throughout 2027, which will allow the movement of waste to be tracked in “real time”.

The Scottish government enacted the Digital Waste Tracking (Scotland) Regulations 2026 on 11 March, while the Welsh Government laid the draft Digital Waste Tracking (Wales) Regulations 2016 on 3 March. Northern Ireland’s Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs is undertaking a consultation on a new waste and resources strategy for Northern Ireland that closes for public comment on 6 April. Updates for England are expected shortly.

In respect of enforcement, the waste action plan seeks to build on existing efforts by strengthening existing powers and adding further enforcement tools. From July 2024 to the end of 2025, the Environment Agency (EA) secured 122 prosecutions, leading to 10 immediate custodial sentences, and shut down 1,205 illegal waste sites. However, under the proposals the EA’s powers will be expanded significantly to tackle waste crime, including the authority to search premises, arrest waste criminals and seize assets. 

These new enforcement measures include more specialist enforcement officers on the ground and a new operational waste intelligence and analysis unit designed to accelerate enforcement action by bringing together satellite, drone and other visual imagery, financial and criminal data and other intelligence in one place for the first time. 

There are also proposals to use cutting-edge technology and data to target waste criminals, including a screening tool to comb through HGV licence applications, cross-checking them against the register of waste permit holders and waste carriers.

In a separate move, local authorities will also be granted powers to issue conditional cautions to fly-tippers rather than pursuing them through the courts, along with powers to seize money from those caught to fund clean-up operations. 

The government says it is also considering expanding powers under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE), Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) and other relevant legislation to the EA and its enforcement officers. This would grant EA inspectors police-style enforcement powers, building on expanded powers given last year through the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 to tackle water companies’ poor environmental performance and further increasing the EA’s investigative capability. Expansion of POCA would also enable greater tracing and recovery of the financial benefits of waste crime.

The new proposed penalties include conditional cautions, which could see offenders complete up to 20 hours of unpaid work cleaning streets or parks, and paying back the cost of cleaning up the waste that they have dumped on public land. If an offender admits to the crime, agrees to the caution and complies with the conditions, they will not face prosecution.

Finally, in terms of remediation, often the burden falls on landowners to both secure their land against the illegal dumping of waste and clear illegally dumped waste from their land, although they can attempt to recover costs if the polluter is identified. However, the EA will now be empowered to step in on exceptional basis to clear sites where waste presents an untenable risk to the public and the environment. It will however still pursue criminal prosecution and seek to recover any clearance costs.

Defra has also developed assessment criteria to objectively identify those sites with the most compelling cases for clearance and has said it will work with the insurance industry to explore any barriers to an accessible insurance market that would allow farmers, businesses and landowners to be indemnified against illegal waste dumping on their land.

Although further details still need to be confirmed, Ross McDowall, an environmental law specialist at Pinsent Masons, said the action plan’s proposals signal the government’s commitment to tackling waste crime. “The action plan is a welcome step forward,” he said. “The three-pronged strategy should have a significant positive impact on the waste sector by helping regulators address illegitimate operators that undercut compliant businesses and undermine the environment. However, they also serve as a reminder of the need for robust management practices for all parties involved in the waste management and disposal chain.”

Kevin Bridges, a criminal regulatory specialist at Pinsent Masons, said the proposals rightly aimed to hold those at fault for waste crime to account. However, he warned they may provide little comfort to private landowners, who are often left to bear the cost of clearing waste dumped on their land and with which they have no involvement. “Whilst the government has committed to working with the insurance industry to explore any barriers to an accessible insurance market that would allow farmers, businesses and landowners to be indemnified against illegal waste dumping on their land, for high-risk sites, premium costs can be prohibitive,” he said. “That seems unlikely to change.”

Bridges added that owners, occupiers and license holders must now ensure they have “reasonable mitigation procedures in place” to prevent or reduce the risk of illegal dumping on their sites. “They should install improved fencing, systems and processes for surveillance and monitoring and undertake sampling to understand whether there has been contamination.”

Eluned Watson, an environmental and regulatory specialist at Pinsent Masons, said the proposals signalled that waste crime is being treated as a “serious organised crime” and that businesses across all sectors would need to remain alert to the development of the action plan and related legislative amendments. “Environmental risks can arise wherever waste is generated or mishandled and the regulatory framework is designed to manage environmental risks across the entire lifestyle of the waste, regardless of the sector.”

“Consistent implementation of the action plan will therefore be key,” McDowall added. “Regulators must be encouraged to use these new tools quickly, decisively and in a co-ordinated manner, if the government’s goals are to be achieved and environmental protection secured”.