The Environment Agency announced in December 2011 that it had established a task force which was designed to crack down on illegal waste sites in England and Wales. And with news that in just three months the task force managed to track 400 new sites means it is not failing to meet its objective.
It is particularly important to find illegal waste sites as they can threaten the environment, contaminate land and rivers and pose a risk to human health. The worst of the sites can pollute homes and schools with smoke from illegally burned materials, and it is particularly alarming that over 300 of the sites identified were within 50m of schools, homes or sensitive environmental sites.
If the task force is not enough of an incentive against illegal sites, the fact that the owner of an illegal waste site from Berkshire was ordered to pay costs of nearly £900,000 in August 2011 is surely an indication that the Agency is taking such sites very seriously.
Environment Agency Chairman Lord Smith said, "The involvement of criminals in high-value waste crime is now a nationwide and worldwide challenge for enforcement agencies."
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