The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and the Scottish Partnership Against Rural Crime (SPARC) have joined forces to tackle the criminal disposal of waste.

If waste is not disposed of properly or handled correctly, it can cause serious pollution of the environment – air, land and water – which can be harmful to health, cause environmental damage, looks unsightly and costs a considerable amount of money to clean up. For this reason, waste disposal is regulated, and those involved in the transport, management or disposal of waste require licences to ensure that hazardous or toxic waste is properly recycled, recovered or disposed of as well as reducing instances of fly-tipping. Criminal waste activity can include illegal waste companies corrupting vulnerable land owners and threatening or intimidating them into allowing waste to be dumped on their land. This illegal activity has an economic impact on legitimate businesses involved in waste disposal and has a wider impact due to the costs involved in ‘cleaning up’ illegal waste. SEPA, Scotland’s principal environmental regulator and SPARC a multi-agency partnership set up to prevent crime and protect rural communities want to help the rural community by removing criminal elements, allowing people to use waste legally to resource and benefit their land. Landowners who have been offered money to store waste on their land, or have been threatened or intimated into allowing waste to be deposited onto their land are being urged to contact SEPA for help and advice. If you have any information regarding the criminal disposal of waste, contact SEPA in confidence by emailing: Intelligence@sepa.pnn.gov.uk