After high-profile scrutiny of serious large-scale waste dumping around the country, on Friday, 20 March 2026, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (“Defra”) published its Waste Crime Action Plan (the “Plan”), setting out a strengthened approach to tackling illegal waste activity in England. Organised waste crime continues to cause substantial harm to communities and the environment, with losses in England estimated at over £1bn a year.
The measures come as part of a broader programme of regulatory reform, with some aspects having been individually well-advanced for some time. The grouped focus on measures is intended to tackle and prevent serious offending. Whilst increased funding for the Environment Agency (“EA”), the introduction of landfill tax rebates for affected local authorities, and the exploration of some level of further insurance against these crimes will be welcomed, the emphasis and expectation of many stakeholders will be on active enforcement to deter and prevent those who operate outside of the legitimate waste sector, causing environmental and financial harm to communities and business. There is a suggestion that the EA may require further investigation and enforcement powers whereas the use of the already existing wide-ranging powers will hopefully be facilitated by additional funding, targeted recruitment, and the use of technology.
It is unclear whether similar plans will appear for the rest of the UK, which is also significantly impacted by these types of illegal operations.
The Plan is built around three core objectives: (1) prevention; (2) enforcement; and (3) remediation.
Prevention
Designed to reduce waste crime by strengthening regulatory controls and improving early intervention, the Plan pursues this goal through three main reforms:
- Carriers, brokers and dealers reforms: moving the current regulation of waste management and transport into the Environmental Permitting regime. This is designed to give the EA stronger oversight and raises maximum penalties for non-compliance to up to 5 years’ imprisonment.
- UK-wide digital waste tracking system: this measure has been planned for some time. A new digital waste tracking system operating via a single platform will replace paper-based documentation. This will be available from April 2026 for all currently licensed or permitted waste receiving sites, and mandatory from October 2026.
- Waste permit exemptions: removing three waste permit exemptions and tightening the conditions of seven others to prevent misuse. The EA will also receive powers to amend exemptions more quickly in the future, without waiting for legislative changes, if evidence of other abuse emerges.
The Plan details various tools and measures including:
- Enhanced EA enforcement actions, including expanding the use of restriction notices, which require operators to cease activities immediately where there is serious risk of environmental harm, as well as other tools to enforce against those who enable or cooperate with waste criminals;
- Revocation, suspension and deregistration of permits or authorisations if intelligence indicates diversion of waste from legitimate channels, or if persistent poor performance occurs. New “fit and proper” permitting checks will be introduced, with engagement on these matters expected in Spring 2026;
- HMRC tax-compliance measures, including expansion of tax-checking rules in the waste sector, and considering potential future linkage between waste permit renewals and applicants passing tax record checks;
- Strengthening and clarifying local authority roles, with new statutory guidance on Litter Enforcement Powers laid in Parliament to improve the consistency of enforcement, an updated Code of Practice on Litter and Refuse to inform local authorities on litter-clearing techniques for different land types, and new best practice guidance published on use of local authorities’ powers to seize vehicles with suspected waste crime links; and
- Public involvement, supported by the EA’s newly launched Waste Hub, providing accessible information, guidance and updates on waste management and waste crime, and a reporting portal for environmental problems.
Enforcement
The second core objective aims to improve intelligence-gathering capabilities to enable better identification and prosecution of offenders, and ensure penalties reflect the severity of waste crime.
The government is committing an additional £45mn to the EA’s waste crime enforcement budget (on top of an earlier £5.6mn increase announced for this financial year) – an uplift of the EA’s current enforcement budget (£10mn in 2024/2025). Funding will support:
- a new Operational Waste intelligence and Analysis Unit, which will use satellite and drone imagery (in combination with other data) to spot unusual waste activity earlier
- the hiring of additional personnel to the Joint Unit for Waste Crime, a multi-agency taskforce established in 2020 to tackle serious and organised waste crime.
The Plan refers to greater investment in technology, and advances in data sharing, including:
- increasing the use of drones equipped with LiDAR;
- use of geospatial imagery and satellite technology;
- screening of HGV operator licence applications against waste permit and carrying records to identify potential illegal waste carrying;
- broader data sharing across HM Land Registry, HMRC and the EA to identify suspicious land use and waste shipments; and
- exploration of information-sharing with financial institutions to identify waste-related criminality, giving banks information to decide whether to do business with waste criminals.
The Plan further describes new penalties and deterrence measures, including:
- penalty points on driving licences for fly-tipping offences, which could eventually lead to loss of licence;
- clean-up squads: local authorities may be given powers to issue conditional cautions, requiring offenders to undertake unpaid clean-up work; and
- naming and shaming: the EA will now publish the names of illegal waste operators, and Defra will work with local authorities to consider how local authorities can use naming and shaming for fly-tippers to improve deterrence.
Defra and the Home Office will also consider expansion of the EA’s powers to enforce against waste crime, potentially including additions under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, and Proceeds of Crime Act.
Remediation:
The third core objective addresses existing illegal waste sites and supporting landowners and local authorities in managing the impacts of waste crime.
While landowners remain responsible for securing and clearing their land, the EA may intervene in exceptional circumstances where sites pose significant risks to the community and the environment. Defra has developed new criteria, based on operational factors, community impact, and environmental risk to guide selection of sites for Government-led clearance. The Plan identifies three high-priority sites for immediate assessment and action, although many sites will not benefit from this initiative.
To mitigate the high cost of clearing illegal waste, Defra will work with the insurance industry to improve availability of cover for landowners affected by illegal dumping and implement Landfill Tax rebate schemes to reduce costs to local authorities associated with major clean-up operations. The timeline for these measures is unclear and for many landowners or tenants whose land is blighted by these crimes, where insurance may not be available, the inability to have access to landfill tax rebates on the same footing as local authorities seems inequitable.
Next Steps
The publication of the Waste Crime Action Plan signals a shift towards a more coordinated, intelligence-led approach to waste crime regulation. It is positive to see the planned full use of drone and other technology and long overdue additional funding for the EA to focus on sophisticated criminal activity. For many stakeholders, including the heavily regulated permitted waste industry, the measures have been keenly anticipated with tangible results against criminals circumventing the legitimate sector now expected promptly.
Defra intends to commission further research into the economic, regulatory and criminal drivers of waste crime, informing future policy making. In the meantime, communities and business should continue to be vigilant and implement asset management strategies which take into account the risk of serious waste crime.
Article co-authored by Jack Payne.
