Forum topic: A British Mafia?

“Waste crime, the new narcotics”, says a leading politician.

“Buried” is a 10 part, 15 minute per episode, series running now on BBC R4, or available via the I player. Two environmental investigative journalists start to get their teeth into a hugely valuable sector. It is not pretty. They suggest 280,000 unlicensed waste collectors operate in the UK, one fifth of all waste collection is criminally linked, they found one illegal dumping site the size of 46 football pitches and suggest countless other illegal ones across the country – including London. A system described as “broken”, where the government doesn’t know the size of the problem and “things are getting worse” has health risks and the strong risk of, if not actual involvement of, a growing British mafia, with multiple threads to other mafia type activities, such as trafficking.

Oh dear. Their suggestion, and that from campaigners in such as Naples, which suffered terribly from illegal dumping, is for the public not to stay quiet and to understand where their waste goes. I wonder if we do.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/jan/23/buried-bbc-podcast-exposing-waste-rubbish-crime-scandal

I plan to highlight some related local challenges over the coming periods but in the meantime recommend the series.

Not so long since fly-tipping was a borough political hot potato – Tories vs Labour - the latter apparently being to blame, and the implication that this was a near uniquely Enfield problem. Well, with an apparent one million plus UK incidents pa, it is evidently a tad broader. Why? Well, the chief executive of the Environment Agency says the rewards are as high or higher than robbery, drug dealing or contract killing. Dump a mattress of kill a rival? The balancing decisions must be tough in such circles, particularly since the former is low risk. There’s more on our waste problem in a short explanatory article.
https://theconversation.com/dirty-gold-the-fly-tipping-gangs-costing-councils-millions-and-how-you-can-help-198343
What can we do to help? The author suggests:
Produce less waste aka buy less stuff and find second generation uses for what you do buy and are finished with;
Report fly tipping, or clean it up yourself if practicable. (Person who dumps their vegetable waste on the Fox Lane bridge most weeks, we’re looking at you)
Use the council for larger items, not the scrap men who often circulate our estates in vans. I personally take note of this one.
More on what we don’t know about our waste at a later date