APPENDIX 10
Memorandum from the Environmental Services
Association
ESA is the sectoral trade association for the
United Kingdom's waste and secondary resource management industry,
a sector annually contributing more than £5 billion to GDP
and working to align the UK's economic and environmental sustainability.
ESA's Members want to be enabled to deliver
the United Kingdom's compliance with the European Union Landfill
Directive and other relevant EU law, with appropriate pre-treatment
of hazardous wastes and by returning to the productive economy
as renewable energy and secondary materials more of the energy
and materials contained in waste.
What is the scale of the impact of these crimes
on the local environment?
Environmental crimes inflict considerable economic,
environmental and social damage on communities throughout the
United Kingdom. In 2002, the London Borough of Lewisham counted
13,500 incidents of fly-tipping costing more than £500,000
to clear. That figure was 50% higher than in 2001, which in turn,
was 50% higher than in 2000. The Keep Britain Tidy Group's 2003
Local Environmental Quality Survey of England revealed that rubbish
was found at 97% of the 10,000 sites inspected.
In 2002, the cost of managing abandoned vehicles
was £14 million. This is equivalent to 35% of the Government's
Waste and Performance Reward Grant for 2004 which rewards local
authorities that have achieved their statutory recycling targets.
ESA is very concerned that the failure of the Government to prepare
the Nation for the ending of co-disposal from 16 July 2004 may
lead to an increase in fly-tipping of hazardous wastes.
Members of the Committee will be aware of instances,
most notably in New York City under Mayor Giuliani, where attacking
environmental crime was seen as essential to lowering levels of
other crimes. There can be no doubt that, across the UK today,
the level of graffiti and fly-tipping is sufficiently high to
add to intimidation of law-abiding people by contributing to a
general ambience of lawlessness.
Has there been a cultural change in attitudes
to these kind of crimes and are they being treated more or less
seriously than in the past? Do responsible bodies who deal with
the problem and its consequences have sufficient resources and
powers to do so?
We believe that the current powers available
to the Courts are adequate and the Courts have taken some care
to provide guidance on sentencing. For example, an individual
convicted of fly-tipping can be fined up to £20,000 or face
imprisonment.
Although it is potentially harsh to impose the
cost of cleaning graffiti on the victim-the person responsible
for the relevant surface—rather than the perpetrator, ESA
welcomes various provisions of the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003
relating to local environmental crimes.
It has been a source of long-standing frustration
to ESA that the Government has not collected information on incidences
of fly-tipping and we welcome the development of "Flycapture".
We believe that Flycapture should record incidences of fly-tipping
occurring both on public land and on private land: for example,
both farmers and the National Trust suffer from fly-tipping.
To be fully effective, there needs to be a broad
public understanding that there is a sufficiently high risk of
detection and successful prosecution. We note that the Anti-social
Behaviour Act 2003 has not resulted in significantly more resources
for local authorities effectively to detect local environmental
crimes.
Currently, we do not believe that detection
is sufficiently effective. For example, of 4,361 cases of fly-tipping
reported in the London Borough of Merton in 2002, only 1% resulted
in a prosecution. Of the 3,700 offences of fly-tipping reported
to the Environment Agency in 2002, less than 6% resulted in a
conviction.
To enable ESA's Members to invest in next generation
waste management infrastructure, regulation and its enforcement
needs to direct waste to regulated infrastructure with zero tolerance
of criminal evasion of regulated facilities. On the basis of figures
produced by the Environment Agency, which estimates the annual
cost of fly-tipping to be over £100 million, this framework
is obviously not in place in England.
We offer two suggestions:
first, the Government must provide resources
to the Environment Agency and to local authorities to enable them
successfully to pursue criminals. International experience suggests
that local authorities receive only half of the funding they need
to collect and manage waste in accordance with the requirements
of the Landfill Directive. This budget is also expected to fund
the detection and prosecution of environmental crime such as dealing
with the consequences of the End-Of-Life Vehicles Directive.
It is the Government's responsibility and not
that of the regulated industry who already pay ample taxes to
contribute towards the cost of domestic and international security
for the UK, including detection and prosecution of environmental
crimes;
second, the Government ought to produce a good
practice guide to local authorities on effective detection of
local environmental crime. This could include examples of initiatives
taken by a local authority such as partnerships and technologies
that are available to detect environmental crimes.
What alternatives exist for dealing with these
types of crimes outside the criminal justice system?
ESA supports the piloting of fixed penalty notices
for minor local environment crimes.
We believe that the Government as a matter of
urgency should also fund a public information campaign to make
householders and businesses aware of their legal obligations.
For example, a survey by the Federation of Small Businesses in
2002 reported that 77% of its members were not aware of their
legal duties under Duty of Care Legislation while a survey by
the Environment Agency published in 2003 revealed that 76% of
businesses were unaware of their legal duties under this piece
of legislation.
ESA has consistently suggested that the Government
should pilot the introduction of direct charging to deliver the
additional expenditure on waste management that is necessary to
achieve compliance with the Landfill Directive.
Does environmental crime have a disproportionate
impact on poorer and less advantaged sections of society?
Environmental crime has an impact on all sections
of society throughout the United Kingdom. Wherever environmental
crime occurs, it further debilitates those who wish to live in
a law-abiding and congenial environment. A national database on
local environmental crimes enables the Government to identify
hot-spots.
March 2004
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