Centenial Celebration

Transaction Search Form: please type in any of the fields below.

Date: March 28, 2024 Thu

Time: 9:23 pm

Results for europol

1 results found

Author: Environment Agency (United Kingdom)

Title: Novel Approaches to Waste Crime

Summary: Executive Summary The European Pathway to Zero Waste (EPOW) programme has eight actions, five of which are led by the Environment Agency and three by WRAP who took over from the South East England Development Agency in April 2011. One of the actions under the programme is assessing and reporting on novel approaches to tackling waste crime which aims to demonstrate the effectiveness of new public sector led approaches to reducing waste crime and supporting new markets for the reuse of recovered materials. This study reports on the outcomes from a pilot of the best novel approaches. Environmental crime is a high priority area for European Member States; tackling the issue are international networks, working groups and organisations that include the European Commission, Interpol, Europol, Member State regulatory agents and a wide range of specific task force groups. These bodies are set up to deliver programmes that address and implement waste crime reduction measures. In its 2011 EU Organised Crime Threat Assessment Report however, Europol notes that "substantial intelligence gaps (in the area of waste crime) preclude comprehensive assessment of organised crime activity in this area". The intelligence on European waste crime notes: - Illegal waste activities within the EU are organised and sophisticated networks with clear division of roles with some organised gangs making billions of Euros per year; - Waste brokers feeding these networks can also be part of and embedded within the legal waste management system, appearing to be operating legitimate businesses; - Complexity in the legal waste management system facilitates rather than prevents criminal activity; and - There are substantial financial burdens borne by affected Member States (e.g. those where the illegal dumping and disposal are occurring), which intelligence suggests to be south-east and eastern Member States plus those countries that share a border with these Member States (e.g. Albania). As a consequence of globalisation, enhanced market development and trade outside the EU, the flow of waste around Europe and outside its borders has become larger, more complex and significantly more costly to police. Rises in the number of conventions, Directives and state laws have, to some degree and with varying success, been instruments to ensure proper re-use, recovery, recycling and disposal of wastes. Waste recovery, management and disposal remains a sector where illegal activity and criminal organisations freely operate, often making large financial gains from their activities to the detriment of legitimate businesses, the common market and society at large. This document, focusing on the reused and recovered waste tyre market, reports on the current size of the EU, UK and South East of England tyre market, followed by a number of public sector led case studies illustrating novel approaches to reducing waste tyre crime. This study has identified that there are several commonly accepted motivators for tyre crime including: financial gain, convenience, opportunism, market dynamics/demand, lack of a threat of being caught and lenient sentences/punishment for offences. The novel approaches identified as part of this study commonly use an intelligence-led approach, whereby data gathered proactively is used to tackle crime on a number of fronts. Novel approaches can involve new partnerships, new approaches and intervention points, sharing of information and multi-agency collaboration, targeting different players in the supply chain and pairing crime enforcement action with awareness raising to stop crime occurring. It also involves mechanisms to support secondary waste market development, tackling one of the key sources - the waste itself - making it a valuable resource rather than a material to discard at lowest cost. The intelligence-led approach is now a widely accepted methodology for profiling organised waste crime and coordinating surveillance, awareness-raising and ultimately building a case for enforcement and prosecution. The case studies examined within this report use this intelligence-led approach to help tackle waste crime - they go beyond reactive policing. The demonstrable advantages of this approach include multi-agency collaboration giving access to pooled resources with greater breadth and depth, sharing intelligence and information to take fast action on emerging crime problems, engaging with and gathering knowledge from the general public and businesses and making decisions on allocating resources where the best outcomes can be anticipated.

Details: Reading, UK: Environment Agency, 2012. 66p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 20, 2019 at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/289927/geho0312bwdy-e-e.pdf

Year: 2012

Country: United Kingdom

URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/novel-approaches-to-waste-crime

Shelf Number: 154277

Keywords:
Case Studies
Criminal Networks
Environmental Crime
European Pathway to Zero Waste (EPOW)
Europol
Illegal Dumping
Illegal Waste
Intelligence-Led
Interagency Collaboration
Organized Crime Threat Assessment Report
Supply Chain
Tire Market
United Kingdom
Waste Crime
Waste Recovery