Last week the Environment Agency took part in a multi-agency day with the Metropolitan Police Commercial Vehicle Unit, DVSA and HMRC Road Fuel Testing Unit in a bid to reduce and disrupt waste crime.

During the day of action, numerous commercial vehicles were checked by each agency including nine carrying controlled waste. Environment Agency officers checked that these operators had a permit to carry waste, had the correct duty of care paperwork and were describing the waste they were carrying correctly and weren’t misdescribing it. Officers also checked whether waste was being transported to authorised and legitimate sites where it would be handled correctly.

Senior Environmental Crime Officer Julia Leigh said:

Multi-agency days of action are a valuable tool in preventing and disrupting waste crime. We want to make it very clear to people that everyone, including households, have a duty of care to ensure their waste is managed and disposed of correctly by the people they give it to. If you use illegal waste carriers to take your rubbish, you risk being fined up to £5,000.

Gareth Llewellyn, DVSA Chief Executive, said:

DVSA is committed to protecting you from unsafe drivers and vehicles. By combining our enforcement powers and intelligence with that of the Environment Agency, we’re effectively targeting waste operators breaking the rules and putting themselves and other road users at risk. We won’t hesitate to issue fines, or take vehicles off our roads, if we find waste carriers operating in an unsafe manner.

Waste being transported with no authorisations is likely to end up at illegal waste sites. Such sites store waste in vast quantities and for long periods of time posing significant risks to health and the environment, like pest infestations and fires, which could lead to water and land contamination plus air pollution from smoke. Illegal waste sites are often the cause of odour complaints too.

Julia Leigh added:

The Environment Agency wants to make sure businesses carrying waste have the proper authorisations to allow them to transport and transfer waste: a waste carrier’s registration from the Environment Agency and waste transfer note from the waste producer.

People who manage waste illegally cost the taxpayer millions every year in clean-up costs. They undercut legitimate business, pose a direct threat to sustainable growth in the waste management sector, take valuable resource from the public sector, and private land owners can be left with bills running into hundreds of thousands of pounds in clean-up costs. Our enforcement days make sure that the right waste goes to the right place ‎to stop unpermitted businesses undermining legitimate businesses and help create a level playing field.

All media enquiries, please call 0800 141 2743. Or email us at southeastpressoffice1@environment-agency.gov.uk.

Further information

For information on how to apply as a waster carrier, broker or dealer, visit: www.gov.uk/waste-carrier-or-broker-registration.

People or businesses who transport, buy, sell or dispose of waste, or arrange for someone else to do so, must be registered. To check if someone is registered, visit: environment.data.gov.uk/public-register/view/search-waste-carriers-brokers.

To apply for an environmental permit please complete the appropriate form: www.gov.uk/topic/environmental-management/environmental-permits.

The Environment Agency publish permits that they issue under the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED).

This decision includes the permit and decision for:

• Operator name: David Davies Resources Ltd
• Installation name: Wytheford House Farm
• Permit number: EPR/ZP3033JP/A001

The Environment Agency consults the public on certain applications for waste operations, mining waste operations, installations, water discharge and groundwater activities. The arrangements are explained in its Public Participation Statement

These notices explain:

• what the application is about
• how you can view the application documents
• when you need to comment by

The Environment Agency will decide:

• whether to grant or refuse the application
• what conditions to include in the permit (if granted)

The Environment Agency consults the public on certain applications for waste operations, mining waste operations, installations, water discharge and groundwater activities. The arrangements are explained in its Public Participation Statement

These notices explain:

• what the application is about
• how you can view the application documents
• when you need to comment by

The Environment Agency will decide:

• whether to grant or refuse the application
• what conditions to include in the permit (if granted)

Tougher restrictions on neonicotinoid pesticides are justified by the growing weight of scientific evidence they are harmful to bees and other pollinators, Environment Secretary Michael Gove said today.

Setting out the UK’s position, the Secretary of State said the UK supports further restrictions on the use of these pesticides. Unless the scientific evidence changes, the government will maintain these increased restrictions post-Brexit.

This follows advice from the UK government’s advisory body on pesticides which said scientific evidence now suggests the environmental risks posed by neonicotinoids – particularly to our bees and pollinators – are greater than previously understood, supporting the case for further restrictions.

Research estimates the value of the UK’s 1,500 species of pollinators to crops at £400-680million per year due to improved productivity.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove said:

I have set out our vision for a Green Brexit in which environmental standards are not only maintained but enhanced.

I’ve always been clear I will be led by the science on this matter. The weight of evidence now shows the risks neonicotinoids pose to our environment, particularly to the bees and other pollinators which play such a key part in our £100bn food industry, is greater than previously understood. I believe this justifies further restrictions on their use. We cannot afford to put our pollinator populations at risk.

I recognise the impact further restrictions will have on farmers and I am keen to work with them to explore alternative approaches both now and as we design a new agricultural policy outside the European Union.

Since December 2013, the EU has banned the use of three neonicotinoids – Clothianidin, Imidacloprid and Thiamethoxam – on a number of crops attractive to bees, such as oilseed rape.

The European Commission has proposed restricting the same three neonicotinoids to only allow their use on plants in glasshouses. Currently, their use is banned for oilseed rape, spring cereals and sprays for winter cereals, but they can be used to treat sugar beet and as seed treatments for winter cereals.
Should this proposal be adopted, the UK would have the right to consider emergency authorisations. We would only do so in exceptional circumstances where there is a real need for the products and the risk to bees and other pollinators is sufficiently low.

Defra’s Chief Scientific Advisor Professor Ian Boyd said:

The important question is whether neonicotinoid use results in harmful effects on populations of bees and other pollinators as a whole.

Recent field-based experiments have suggested these effects could exist. In combination with the observation of widespread and increasing use of these chemicals, the available evidence justifies taking further steps to restrict the use of neonicotinoids.

Defra has today also given an update on its National Pollinator Strategy, which shows encouraging progress on its aims to make farms, towns, cities and the countryside better places for our bees and pollinators.
The strategy was launched in 2014, following independent research which showed an overall decline in the UK’s wild bee diversity over the last 50 years. It sets out a collaborative plan to improve the state of bees and other pollinators, and recognises pesticides as one of the key threats to their populations. The government will continue to work with partners such as Friends of the Earth, British Beekeepers’ Association and Kew to deliver the ambitious strategy.