Sophisticated criminal networks are dumping millions of tonnes of waste in the British countryside every year, costing the UK an estimated £1 billion annually, according to a House of Lords inquiry.
The Environment and Climate Change Committee found that large-scale fly-tipping operations are increasingly linked to organised crime groups involved in money laundering, drug trafficking and modern slavery.
The inquiry estimated that around 38 million tonnes of waste are illegally dumped each year — enough to fill Wembley Stadium 35 times — but warned that the true figure may be far higher due to widespread under-reporting.
Committee chair Baroness Sheehan said waste crime had become a “low-risk, high-reward” activity for organised criminals, who operate with “complete impunity” amid weak enforcement and limited resources at the Environment Agency.
One of the worst cases cited in the inquiry involved 15ft-high piles of waste dumped in a Kent woodland, home to endangered nightingales. Despite public reports dating back to 2020, it took four years for regulators to take action.
Residents told peers they feared reprisals for speaking out. Les Bashford, a gamekeeper on the Surrey-Kent border who faces fly-tipping “almost weekly”, said confronting offenders often leads to violence.
“At least 75 per cent of people dumping here are known to the police,” he said. “If you catch them and they’ve already tipped, they’ll do whatever they can to escape.”
The Lords inquiry concluded that the £1bn annual cost of waste crime combines both the public cost of cleaning up sites and the tax revenue lost through unpaid landfill levies and unlicensed disposal operations.
Legitimate waste firms are also losing millions to criminal competitors undercutting them with illegal dumping, the committee said.
Dan Cooke, of the Chartered Institute of Waste Managers, called for tougher enforcement and more consistent national leadership.
“The negative impact this crime imposes on legitimate operators and local economies, alongside the environmental damage it causes, means tackling waste crime must become a government priority,” he said.
Peers urged ministers to launch a dedicated waste crime hotline, a digital tracking system to monitor waste from origin to disposal, and quarterly targets and progress reports for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).
The committee also recommended a review into whether the landfill tax system was inadvertently fuelling illegal dumping by making lawful disposal prohibitively expensive.
Baroness Sheehan said: “Waste crime is critically under-prioritised despite its significant environmental, economic and social costs. The government must act now — there is no time to waste.”
A Defra spokesperson said the government was already “tightening the net” on waste gangs as part of its Plan for Change.
“We are helping councils to crush fly-tippers’ vans, funding more Environment Agency enforcement officers, and imposing tougher sentences for those who transport waste illegally,” the spokesperson said. “We will carefully consider the recommendations of this report and respond in due course.”
The Lords’ findings add to growing concern about the UK’s waste system, where gaps in enforcement have allowed criminals to profit from illegal dumping while damaging the environment and local communities.
