{"id":1184,"date":"2026-06-23T15:11:52","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T15:11:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/?p=1184"},"modified":"2026-06-23T16:13:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T16:13:33","slug":"grundon-we-need-a-collective-effort-to-tackle-waste-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/23\/grundon-we-need-a-collective-effort-to-tackle-waste-crime\/","title":{"rendered":"Grundon: \u201cWe need a collective effort to tackle waste crime\u201d\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u00a0<\/div>\n

\"Waste<\/h4>\n

Neil Grundon, Chairman of Grundon, says better use of technology and having \u2018feet on the ground\u2019 is the best way to beat fly-tipping.<\/h4>\n

When the Environment Agency (EA) recently published its list of over 100 \u2018high risk\u2019 waste sites<\/a>, my first thought was \u2018is that all?\u2019<\/p>\n

My second was \u2018how much is that costing\u2019 \u2013 and I don\u2019t just mean in terms of the clean-up operations, I mean in lost government revenue.<\/p>\n

By my calculations, the almost 1.9 million tonnes of dumped rubbish alluded to by the EA at these sites alone would, at the current standard landfill tax rate of \u00a3130.75 per tonne, equate to nearly \u00a3247,000,000 \u2013 or put more simply, a quarter of a billion pounds \u2013 missing from the tax kitty.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Neil Grundon, Chairman of Grundon, says better use of technology and having \u2018feet on the ground\u2019 is the best way to beat fly-tipping.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Of course, I\u2019m not naive enough to think that the people dumping this waste are going to drive a few extra miles to their nearest recycling centre and pay their taxes. As we know, waste criminals (whether that be organised crime syndicates or chancers conning folk by offering to get rid of their waste on the cheap) don\u2019t care about anything other than making the highest price in the quickest possible time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the EA itself admits, more widely, there are currently around 700 known illegal waste sites across England, and it has already set out plans to tackle the issue<\/a>, citing a strategy that (amongst others) includes faster intelligent handling and a more consistent response; the creation of a new Operational Waste Intelligence and Analysis Unit; and naming operators involved in illegal activity.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all very well, but I believe the EA could take a much more proactive approach by swapping report writing with better use of technology and sending its permitting and enforcement teams out in the field more often.<\/p>\n

I believe it is only when people see these waste abominations for themselves that they realise the true scale and level of the large-scale criminality<\/a> being perpetuated.<\/p>\n

Instead, what we are seeing is reputable, established companies like ourselves facing an ongoing struggle of more and more regulations and hoops to jump through \u2013 enforcing things that don\u2019t need to be enforced while not taking action on the things that do.<\/p>\n

I also think that the general public and businesses need to take a long, hard look at what they do with their waste.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s created in someone\u2019s home, someone\u2019s business premises, someone\u2019s building site, and the responsibility lies partly at their front door too \u2013 to coin a phrase, \u2018just say no\u2019<\/em> to unscrupulous waste collectors. It takes just a minute or two to check an operator\u2019s licence \u2013 isn\u2019t that worth it if it helps keep the countryside clean?<\/p>\n

Thankfully, there are plenty of people and organisations (ourselves included) who do care about the environment and desperately want to help rid our countryside of the scourge of fly-tippers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, it\u2019s often an uncoordinated, isolated and under-supported effort, which is why I think we need a collective approach to tackle waste crime and bring back some good \u2018old-fashioned\u2019 civic pride.<\/p>\n

Look at what proactive campaigning has done to help hold the water industry to account over sewage being dumped in our rivers, lakes and seas \u2013 this is the power of the people, the citizen scientists who know they can make a difference.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been following the work of the campaigning group Clean Up Britain, which is doing a great job of attracting both widespread attention in the corridors of power and in the media around the issue of fly-tipping.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The group says its mission is: \u2018To end the cycle of environmental neglect by challenging inaction, demanding accountability, and inspiring a culture of personal and collective responsibility<\/em>.\u2019 And that sums it up perfectly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, it launched a campaign to raise \u00a3100,000 to install 200 hidden enforcement cameras and warning signage in fly-tipping hotspots, and I think that\u2019s a brilliant idea.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Perhaps we should look at recruiting a \u2018citizen army\u2019 to keep track of such activities. Local communities will usually be the first to know when waste is illegally dumped; sometimes, they may even see it happening.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Utilising technologies like hidden trail cameras that identify car number plates<\/a> and faces of the perpetrators takes away fears of confrontation and provides actual evidence for the enforcement agencies. Even better if those videos can be posted on social media so those individuals know they are being watched and reported.<\/p>\n

Sadly, though, even when fly tippers are caught, they seem to get away with not much more than a slap on the wrist. I read recently about one case where two men had dumped fly-tipped waste in a remote rural lane \u2013 one had visited the site some 50 times in less than 10 weeks, and the other had advertised on Facebook as a waste collector, despite not holding a valid waste carrier\u2019s licence \u2013 yet they were each issued with community protection warnings and fined \u00a3400.<\/p>\n

I try not to despair when I see things like that, but stronger deterrents must surely be the way forward too.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the EA says (and for once I agree), it cannot address waste crime alone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We do need a much more joined-up approach, we need those citizen armies and those campaigning groups, we need investment in technology, we need politicians to listen.<\/p>\n

Like many of our peers, we already provide bins, bags and volunteers to help clean up our countryside. As an industry, we are playing our part \u2013 let\u2019s all put feet on the ground (yes, I mean the EA too) and get this job done.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The post Grundon: \u201cWe need a collective effort to tackle waste crime\u201d\u00a0<\/a> appeared first on Circular Online<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Neil Grundon, Chairman of Grundon, says better use of technology and having \u2018feet on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1185,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184\/revisions\/1185"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}