The rise of the illegal rubbish dump

The rise of the illegal rubbish dump

Recent reports have made it apparent that there are literally hundreds of illegal dumps that are operating across England, including at least eleven so-called "super sites" which contain tens of thousands of tonnes of rubbish. The BBC reported on this issue in late January 2026, and it has highlighted a serious and growing problem that not only affects the countryside but will have a wider impact on natural wildlife and humans who are unfortunate enough to live close to one of these sites.

It is believed that more than seven hundred illegal tips were shut down in the 2024 - 25 period, but data released by the Environment Agency has revealed some five hundred and seventeen dumps were still active at the end of 2025. Clearly, the best efforts of the authorities are failing to eradicate this growing problem.

Vast amounts of waste still being dumped illegally

Among some of the largest sites that have yet to be cleared up are a 280,000-tonne waste site in Cheshire, two 50,000 tonne sites in Lancashire and Cornwall, a 36,000-tonne tip in Kent and a 20,000-tonne dump in Oxfordshire. This has caused a great deal of upset to local residents in these areas, as well as the authorities who are supposed to be safeguarding against this sort of criminal activity from occurring in the first place.

The vast majority of these sites are in remote countryside locations, often hidden from the gaze of locals and council officials alike, and on what should be agricultural land where one would expect to see crops growing.

Criminal gangs are cashing in on the waste industry

Police have said that many of these illegal landfill sites are run by organised criminal gangs, who are making cash by charging much less than legitimate operators to take and bury waste.

Legitimate waste carrying businesses have to pay site fees to use legitimate licensed landfill sites, depending on the amount and type of waste they are trying to dispose of, and landfill tax is also charged at just over £126 per tonne.

The Environment Agency have stated that it was committed to tackling waste crime and was "pulling every lever to disrupt those who profit from the harm illegal waste sites can cause".

What is the cause of illegal dump sites?

Some have argued that the ban on waste being exported to China has brought about this unsavoury issue in the United Kingdom, whereas there has been a good deal of debate whether the export ban has anything to do with it and the real issue is good old fashioned criminal profiteering.

The Chinese ban theory

China's waste import ban, instated at the end of 2017, prevented foreign inflows of waste products. Starting in early 2018, the government of China, under Operation National Sword, banned the import of several types of waste, including plastics with a contamination level of above 0.05 percent. The ban has greatly affected recycling industries across the globe, as China had been the world's largest importer of waste plastics and processed hard-to-recycle plastics for other countries, especially in the West.

The decision made by the Chinese government caused widespread repercussions on a global scale. In July 2018, China produced a document to the World Trade Organisation regarding environmental and health issues. China requested an urgent change to be made concerning the imported waste China imports from other countries. The recommended list was pushing forward for wastes such as plastics, textile, and paper products to be banned from imports.

The background to the Chinese ban of exported waste products

China is the largest importer of waste plastics, accounting for fifty six percent of the global waste market. Meanwhile, the United States, Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom are the main source countries for waste products. Since 2010, China has begun to implement more stringent waste import policies that correspond with the quality of import waste and improvement of domestic production capacity. Likewise, environmental and health considerations have caused China to introduce the waste import policy in 2017 which bans the import of twenty-four types of solid waste, including certain types of plastics, paper, and textiles. Based on a study by the University of Georgia, it is predicted that by 2030 with this policy, over one hundred million metric tons of plastic waste will be left unaccounted for. This waste has to go somewhere, hence the rise in the criminal involvement within the illegitimate waste industry.

The criminal element driving the illegal waste dumps

Regardless as to whether we are careful separators and sorters of our waste, or we throw everything into landfill, few people consider that their daily waste products will become a lucrative source of income for Europe's criminal gangs.

But that is the reality across the continent, with the EU's law enforcement agency, Europol, warning that waste trafficking is intensifying with a projected further growth in scale and sophistication in their 2025 Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment.

Much of this intensification comes from criminal gangs, according to Europol. These operate by finding ways to bypass domestic and commercial waste disposal contracts, exploiting those open to corruption at all stages of the waste disposal process, falsifying documents and crossing borders to take advantage of slacker law enforcement. It is a black-market Europol describe as low-risk high-profit margin for criminals.

These groups are a mix of traditional organised crime networks and opportunistic legal businesses exploiting inefficiencies and loopholes, causing a significant headache for the various EU agencies responsible for enforcement of environmental crime.

Illegal waste trade worth billions in EU

The issue was highlighted recently by the discovery of an incredibly large mountain of waste hidden away close to the River Thames in Oxfordshire. It was reported that the twenty-foot-high pile of waste contained evidence of waste from schools and local authorities, suggesting abuse of waste management contracts with state institutions and sub-contracted legitimate companies.

This is fly tipping on steroids!

Until recently, the majority of us thought that the worst criminal activity regarding waste disposal was the dodgy white van man fly tipping waste down a country lane in order to make a swift profit. Unfortunately, the truth is far worse with serious organised criminal enterprises making vast sums of money by illegally disposing of waste. However, the criminal underworld has always stived to find new and innovative ways to make a healthy profit, and currently, this seems to carry extraordinarily insignificant risk to the individuals plying their clandestine trade in waste disposal.

Global air quality can also be affected by excess waste

The illegal landfill site is not a problem limited to the United Kingdom. Recently, the EU's anti-fraud office, OLAF, estimated last year that "15% to 30% of all waste shipments might be illegal; the value of this trade could reach up to 9.5 billion euros annually." The EU ships about sixty-seven million tons of legal waste per year within its borders and exports 35.1 million tons outside the EU under legitimate agreements.

It must be borne in mind that hazardous or improperly managed waste can seriously contaminate soil, water, and air, and its uncontrolled movement across borders undermines the EU's transition to a greener, more sustainable economy. Plus, it also gives an unfair advantage to criminal networks over law-abiding businesses. In fact, since the Chinese ban, smaller, poorer countries have started accepting enormous amounts of waste from around the globe and are burning it, bringing major health concerns to local inhabitants and the worlds overall air quality at the same time.

Greener economies have created criminal opportunities

Waste management in the EU is governed by the Waste Framework Directive. It operates on the basis that the original waste producer must pay for the cost of waste management. Member states must report to the European Commission at least once every two years and write new waste management plans every six years.

Enforcement of this Directive has proven to be problematic. The Commission is broadly responsible for enforcement but relies heavily on agencies in each country as well as OLAF, Europol, and a number of other national and EU agencies.

Further confusion is caused by the fact that not all waste is equal. With Europe increasingly moving toward a greener economy, some materials now attract high treatment costs before they can be safely and legally disposed of.

This includes electronics, vehicles, fluorinated gases, textiles, and low-grade plastics. Criminals operating in Europe, who employ industry experts as part of their organisation, will often recycle and sell what they can and dump the rest, often in Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, or Africa.

Hazardous waste, from construction or the medical industry, is a little different. This is sometimes blended with other materials to turn it in to something sellable but is still considered dangerous, or it may be transferred to facilities who will illegally dispose of it without consideration for environmental and health impacts.

Global criminal networks are becoming more sophisticated

Quite recently, several people were arrested in Croatia for importing 35,000 tons of hazardous waste from Italy, Slovenia, and Germany. Europol, the arresting authority, said the waste was "simply buried or dumped in at least three locations" rather than being disposed of properly. This data clearly suggests that illegal waste disposal is a wider problem and not restricted to the United Kingdoms green and pleasant open spaces.

The organised Croation gang involved are estimated to have made 4 million euros and accused of using a network of legal businesses to move the waste, making profit by cutting corners and avoiding the charges associated with toxic waste. Because the activities of these individuals are illegal, one does not know just how toxic some of the waste being dumped actually is. We are now painfully aware of the risks surrounding asbestos, and it is thought that a huge amount of this deadly material is being dumped illegally by criminal gangs, as the cost of disposing of waste asbestos legally remains high.

Criminal networks specialise in falsifying the relevant paperwork, organising secret transport routes, using seemingly legitimate front companies, and mixing legal and illegal waste streams to avoid immediate detection.

Romania has seen many cases involving cross-border networks, with waste arriving from countries such as Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Belgium, often falsely declared as recyclable material.

Sometimes though, as in Oxfordshire, it is easier for people to just dispose of the waste in the simplest way they think they can get away with. This alone can be problematic, as fires can cause acute damage to the surrounding areas, and one is never sure as to what toxins are being released into the atmosphere should this happen.

Law enforcement are struggling to keep a lid on the problem

While EU member countries are aligned on laws and standards in this area, the many cases highlight how each can have wildly differing challenges for effective enforcement.

Europol admitted in a report that law enforcement has invested sufficient resources in this area in only a few Member States. As a large part of the environmental crime activities are conducted by legal businesses, they are often labelled as corporate crimes, thus not seen as that serious. The fact that criminal networks largely use businesses makes these offences less visible.

This is one of the weaknesses exploited by those making a profit from endangering people's health and the environment. As Europe tries to move toward becoming a greener continent, it continues to struggle with those whose concerns are rooted in greed and making money out of other people's misery.

Confirmed sites operating illegally in the United Kingdom

• Burnley in Lancashire, with 25,000 tonnes at site A and double that at site B.
• Site C in Northwich in Cheshire holding about 280,000 tonnes.
• Site D at Sittingbourne in Kent with approximately 36,000 tonnes.
• Site E at Camborne in Cornwall with 50,000 tonnes.
• Site F in Fakenham, Norfolk that had 35,000 tonnes, but has since seen a reduction by more than half.

When one considers the relative size of the United Kingdom, this volume of illegal waste suddenly becomes even more worrying.

Environmental campaigners and residents living near sites across England say little is being done to clean up the dumps, despite the culprits in many cases already having been identified and prosecuted by the authorities. Often, criminal gangs will simply re-brand themselves and continue with their illegal activities to avoid further detection.

The Gloucestershire waste scandal

In Gloucestershire, tens of thousands of tonnes of waste have been dumped at land in Over. This is understandably worrying, as Over is merely a village, not a large urban town.

Witnesses claim that, at its height, thirty to fifty vehicles were going onto the site near the Over roundabout every single day to dump waste.

A fire in June 2025, which saw Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service called out, caused operations at the site to largely cease, although it has not been fully closed off.

Fires regularly break out at the site, which is close to a busy main road and at the back of a popular countryside park and farm shop. With plumes of smoke rising from a couple of spots on the tip, the local population have been quick to criticize the authorities for not acting more robustly with the individuals responsible for the illegal waste being dumped there.

Waste polluting the River Severn

Although the site is now considered to be a significant blot on the landscape, the problems are not restricted to the local aesthetic. Waste is reported to be leaking into the floodplain of the River Leadon, which flows into the River Severn. Locals fear this could potentially decimate the flora and fauna of the ancient river.

Not only that, but the lorries that had been dumping waste daily over the years had created significant road safety, noise, and pollution issues for the local population.

Negligible risk, high profit encourages criminal gangs

Many of the rubbish tips operating across the country are run by serious organised crime gangs. The scale of illegal waste activity in England saw it once dubbed the new narcotics by former Environment Agency chief Sir James Bevan.

The illicit narcotics trade attracts stiff penalties, whereas waste is viewed as a low-risk enterprise to get involved with.

The gangs often bring shredding equipment onto rural sites, located off otherwise quiet country lanes, which then see a number of lorries bringing in waste from household rubbish to soil and aggregate from construction sites to be broken down into smaller, more easily disposed of amounts.

Lorry loads are then taken away, either to be dumped in increasingly larger mountains of waste, buried under farmland or bridleways or even stored in barns for disposal at a later date.

The high profits are evident from the recent seizure of nearly £100,000 in cash and the arrest of two men in a series of raids linked to suspected money laundering and waste crimes across Herefordshire, Shropshire, and Worcestershire. If only two men were arrested, one can only assume that there are far more involved who avoided detection.

Officers also seized six firearms, suspected fake electrical goods and a suspected stolen vehicle.

The fumes from waste can cause serious health issues

The environmental impact is huge too. One local stated that smoke comes up from the site daily and the smell at times is intoxicating.

There have been times in the summer when we will not let the children outside to play because of the smell from the site, because of the fumes that are coming off.

The resident, who wished to remain anonymous because he fears reprisals from those operating the sites, added: "We know that they've been found with weapons. I know the people behind it. I know what they're capable of."

Illegal waste dumping is not a small problem

Major concerns have been voiced over the scale of illegal waste activity when approximately 20,000 tonnes of waste was dumped illegally on a field beside the A34 at Kidlington in Oxfordshire over a period of several months.

But using the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) to make a data request, investigators discovered that there are at least eleven sites bigger than 20,000 tonnes.

The number is quite likely to be even higher, as the Environment Agency acknowledged in its response to the EIR request that "this figure is based on the data we hold; however, we don't have this information for every site".

The Environment Agency has previously declined to give the exact locations of the biggest sites to avoid prejudicing ongoing investigations.

However, it has now revealed six of the biggest sites, which are listed earlier in this article.

In total, it said, it had stopped activity at 743 illegal waste sites in 2024/25, of which 143 were elevated risk, but that 517 active dumps remain. Therefore, this problem is not likely to go away without far more money and resources being put in place to tackle it.

A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) said: "We are working across government to wipe out illegal waste throughout the country and make those that are responsible pay. However, many believe that with the relatively insignificant risk and high profits involved, the authorities really have their work cut out for many years to come.

The government have responded to criticism by stating that "We are directly supporting the Environment Agency to stop the exploitation of our waste system, giving them more officers and 50% more funding to boost waste crime enforcement, and handing out tougher sentences for those who break the law." However, critics feel that extra funding equates to even higher taxes to pay for it.

Is there light at the end of the tunnel for landfill sites?

Although one's immediate reaction may be negative, growing food on a former landfill site could soon become a reality, and quite a lucrative one. At the Wiltshire Super Midden, where cleaned carbon dioxide and heat from waste will grow crops, this could soon become a financially viable and sustainable way to source crops.

In Wiltshire, England, a waste company plans to grow food in greenhouses sitting on top of a landfill. The project would use cleaned carbon dioxide, captured from rotting waste, to grow crops like avocados. If approved, this would be the first project of its kind in the world.

The company behind the ambitious plan, already captures methane from its landfill to generate power. Now, it is proposing to use the heat and carbon dioxide created from that process to boost plant growth in on-site greenhouses. The effort aims to supply up to eighty percent of the fruit and vegetable needs for nearby towns, including Royal Wootton Bassett, Malmesbury, and Brinkworth.

The science behind the plan

Landfills release gases when organic waste, such as food scraps break down. It is the intention to capture and harness this gas, which is mostly methane to generate electricity. In the process, carbon dioxide is also produced. While most landfills let this carbon dioxide escape into the air, this project would reuse it in a new and more ecologically sound way.

The cleaned carbon dioxide, free of harmful chemicals like hydrogen sulphide, would be pumped into greenhouses built above the landfill. The high carbon dioxide levels would help plants grow faster and stronger. This process is already used in some European greenhouses.

The people behind this enterprise claim that 'what comes out of the top of the gas engine is quite clean carbon dioxide. In Europe, who is already used in greenhouses so that we would get that into our greenhouses.'

The greenhouses will not have any actual contact with the landfill soil. Instead, they will use hydroponic systems, plants grown in nutrient-rich water. This keeps the crops safe and clean. The idea is to make food grown on landfills not only possible, but also sustainable and healthy.

Because greenhouses can operate year-round, the project could provide a steady supply of local produce. That means fewer imports, lower transport emissions, and fresher food, which is seen as an all-round win for humans and the environment.

The team plans to grow foods that are not commonly produced in the United Kingdom, such as avocados. Since the greenhouses will be heated by waste energy and enriched with carbon dioxide, these typically warm-climate crops could thrive.

More than just a short-term solution

To make this work, the company behind the idea plans to reshape the landfill. They will flatten parts of the site and build lined pits called "cells." Waste will be placed into these cells to create gas. Once the gas is extracted, the remaining waste can be stored or processed further.

The greenhouses above the cells will be designed to move. That way, once a cell is used up, the greenhouse can shift, and new waste can be added below. This system makes the site reusable and avoids long-term contamination risks.

The plan also includes adding grass and trees to improve the site's appearance and reduce its environmental footprint.

The potential benefits of the 'landfill farm'

This innovative project could help tackle several major challenges, such as food security. By producing up to eighty percent of the local fruit and vegetable needs, it greatly reduces reliance on imported food.

It will also have far lower emissions. It is anticipated that by using waste gas for energy and using the carbon dioxide to reduce the release of harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

This project would also equate to fewer food miles. Since the food is grown locally, it does not need to be transported long distances, reducing emissions and costs. This is particularly relevant when one is talking about crops that ordinarily would be grown in a country with a warmer climate than the United Kingdom.

This project would see a far mor efficient use of waste. The project reuses landfill gases and organic matter to create valuable, nutritious fresh produce.

While the science behind the project seems quite convincing, getting approval may be an uphill struggle. After all, the main challenge is not necessarily a technical one, it is convincing people to accept a new way of growing food.

Growing food on a landfill may sound strange to some, but the innovators insist it will be safe, clean, and nutritious. Since the plants are grown without touching landfill soil, and carbon dioxide is filtered and monitored, the health risks are minimal.

So, if this actually takes off, using today's waste to produce tomorrow's food, would seem to be an innovative idea, and one that could inspire other countries to manage waste and food production more sustainably.

However, until we have more than enough licensed landfill sites to make this initiative work, so we need to keep up the pressure on the criminal gangs who continue to profit from blighting our countries beautiful landscape.

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Hire a skip from Stevenage Skip Hire for your soil and mud

A Hertfordshire client recently hired one of our skips as they just could not believe how much earth they had to get rid of when they dug out a pond in their back garden. Our client had intended to build up their flower beds and other low spots of their garden with the excavated earth. They never thought they would need to get rid of any earth at all.

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Useful information about skip hire in Hertfordshire

The one question we get asked the most at Stevenage Skip Hire is what size skip the customer will need. We always suggest that you think about what you need to dispose of and remember that two skips can be far more expensive than one larger skip. Skips are measured by the yard and range from 3 yard mini skips to roll-on roll-off containers more suitable for higher volume waste requirements.

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Hire a skip from Stevenage Skip Hire to save you time effort and money

Hiring a skip from Stevenage Skip Hire is without a doubt the best way to get rid of all your waste materials! It is convenient, quick, easy and saves you a huge amount of work. Generally speaking, we only get a couple of days a week away from work, and when you end up ferrying your household waste back and forth from the local tip, your weekend soon gets swallowed up.

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The benefits of skip hire from Stevenage Skip Hire in Hertfordshire

Having a good clear out of the garden shed or garage produces way more rubbish than you ever imagined possible. Decorating preparation can also produce a good deal of waste, such as old skirting boards and stripped wood chip paper that his been up since the war, so a skip is a great way to dispose of the waste.

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Further Information

If you would like to know more or are interested in a quote we would be happy to help. Phone us on 0203 780 2277, email us at info@stevenageskiphire.co.uk or fill in our enquiry form and we will be in touch as soon as possible.