Sorry Andy Burnham - a £5,000 fine won’t stop the gangs dumping illegal waste in Britain

It is organised crime, and it needs to be treated as such.

The Prime Minister’s announcement of a new crackdown on the criminal gangs behind illegal waste sites is welcome. Greater involvement from the police and National Crime Agency, more Environment Agency officers, better intelligence sharing and tougher action to seize criminal assets are all steps in the right direction, but they do not go far enough.

If we are serious about dismantling the criminal networks making millions from waste, we need to stop thinking about this primarily as a problem of people dumping rubbish and start treating it as a sophisticated criminal economy.

Criminal operators can make huge sums by collecting waste, charging for its legitimate disposal and then dumping it illegally. They exploit gaps in licensing, tracking and enforcement, pocketing the difference and leaving communities and taxpayers to deal with the consequences.

At the same time, they undercut responsible waste businesses that spend substantial amounts of money employing trained staff, meeting environmental standards, maintaining proper records and disposing of material legally. It creates a perverse situation in which businesses doing the right thing are commercially disadvantaged by criminals with little fear of being caught.

The Government proposes increasing some fines for illegal dumping and failures to treat waste correctly to as much as £5,000. While that might sound substantial to an individual, to an organised criminal operation capable of generating hundreds of thousands or even millions of pounds, it risks becoming little more than a business expense.

If the financial rewards of breaking the law massively outweigh the likely punishment, we should not be surprised when criminals continue to take the risk.

We need much tougher sentencing for serious and persistent waste crime, alongside far more aggressive use of asset seizure and proceeds-of-crime legislation. If somebody has built a business, bought property or accumulated wealth through illegal waste operations, the objective should not simply be to fine them. It should be to strip away the profits that made the crime worthwhile in the first place.

Britain also urgently needs a much more robust system for tracking waste from the moment it is collected to the point at which it is treated, recycled or disposed of. In an economy where we can track a parcel worth £20 virtually every step of the way from a warehouse to somebody's front door, it should not be beyond us to create a transparent and properly enforced digital trail for commercial waste.

Other European countries, including Germany, the Netherlands and parts of Scandinavia, have demonstrated the value of tighter controls, stronger traceability and close cooperation between environmental authorities and enforcement agencies.

Britain should be aiming for the same principle: make waste considerably harder to lose in the system. That means environmental regulators, police forces, local authorities, HMRC and financial crime investigators sharing intelligence far more effectively.

The Government appears to recognise that principle by bringing regulators and law enforcement together, but the challenge will be making sure this becomes permanent, properly resourced enforcement rather than another initiative that gradually loses momentum.

Companies producing commercial waste, and individuals looking to get rid of household waste or appliances, also have a responsibility to check where it ultimately ends up and whether their contractor has a licence. Choosing someone simply because they offer the cheapest price can carry enormous risks if nobody asks how they can provide that service so cheaply.

Responsible businesses should be able to demonstrate clearly how they handle waste and where it goes, and customers should demand that evidence.

Illegal dumping damages the environment, blights communities and leaves legitimate businesses trying to compete against criminals who ignore every rule their responsible competitors follow.

But increasingly, the money generated from waste crime can also sit within a much wider world of organised criminality. The Prime Minister is right to say the days of making easy money from illegal waste must end. Now the Government needs to make sure the law, the technology, the penalties and the enforcement resources are strong enough to make that promise a reality.

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Tony Earnshaw is chief executive of UK Commercial Group.

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