New analysis shared with The Guardian and Watershed Investigations indicates that the UK is confronting a far larger waste-crime problem than authorities have acknowledged, with an estimated 8,000 unlawful dumping grounds scattered across the country, potentially rising to 13,000 according to upper-end projections. Researchers say these sites collectively hold around 13 million tonnes of refuse, allowing operators to dodge at least £1.63 billion in landfill taxes.

Environmental specialists warn that the consequences extend far beyond lost revenue. Prof Kate Spencer of Queen Mary University of London said the absence of monitoring or safety rules around these dumps means nearby land and water are exposed to unfiltered contamination. "The big concern is that along with avoiding landfill tax, they are also avoiding the regulations that control what can go in landfill and ensure that people and the environment are protected," she said.

Spencer added that communities living beside such sites feel the impact daily. "There’s nothing to stop any pollutants being washed into nearby rivers or soils. We also know that illegal waste disposal can create a big concern for local communities in terms of smell, eyesore and littering," she noted, pointing to recurring fires at sites in Essex that carry health risks. "We have illegal waste sites in Essex that regularly catch fire with the potential to harm local air quality and human health."

🇬🇧 Shocked this is happening in the UK in 2025 🇬🇧
A massive illegal waste mountain 15m wide, 10m high dumped right next to the River Cherwell near Kidlington, Oxfordshire. Linked to organised crime and left rotting for weeks while every rainfall risks washing toxic pollutants… pic.twitter.com/qbvz1Gg8v1

— DBS Morocco (@dbsmorocco) November 23, 2025

Despite shutting down 743 unlawful operations in 2024-25, the Environment Agency (EA) is dealing with more than a thousand additional cases. The high estimated total suggests enforcement barely scratches the surface of what experts describe as a deeply entrenched criminal economy.

Choosing Not Knowing

Air & Space Evidence, the satellite-imaging company that developed the detection model, says its technology could help close this gap, but claims the EA declined to use it. Company director Ray Harris expressed frustration that interest within the agency stopped at the technical level. "When we spoke with the Environment Agency there was much interest at the technical level, but at the management level there was no interest," he said.

Harris questioned whether leadership feared uncovering a crisis they lacked the capacity or will to address. "From the outside, this looks like a fear of finding out. If the Environment Agency finds more illegal waste sites then they feel they will have to do something about them. So, they would rather not know."

The tool has already been tested by officials in New Zealand, who verified waste at every one of the 125 suspect sites the system identified, 58% of which were unknown to authorities before inspection.

The UK figures were produced by examining satellite imagery from multiple locations, including London, Brussels, Bucharest and parts of New Zealand, then using those findings to project likely totals across the country.

Waste crime failure

The revelations follow a scathing report from the House of Lords, which argued that the EA and its partner agencies are failing to act decisively against what peers have started to call "the new narcotics". Lady Sheehan, who chairs the Lords’ environment and climate change committee, said: "Despite the scale and seriousness of the crimes, raised by the members of the public in many cases, we have found multiple failings by the Environment Agency and other agencies, from slow responses to repeated public reports (as in the case of Hoad’s Wood, Kent) through to a woeful lack of successful convictions."

Cases such as Hoad’s Wood, where criminals abandoned 35,000 tonnes of rubbish, leaving taxpayers with a £15m cleanup bill, illustrate the scale of the problem. In Oxfordshire, the Kidlington site contains several hundred tonnes of waste, and the Lords committee has identified six similar or larger dumps around the country, calling it evidence of a "fundamentally broken system".

According to EA data, many investigations drag on for years. Some of the 13 longest-running cases, including incidents involving the burning of asbestos, have been open for 11 years without resolution.

Read more: Target to clean UK water bodies pushed back 30 years - 2027 to 2063