Regulations Lead To An Increase In Illegal And Unsafe Waste Disposal

1 February 2011

In a very ironical turn of events, a survey conducted by Anyjunk.co.uk found that, regulations that were intended to ensure safe and efficient domestic and industrial waste disposal are surprisingly leading to an increase in illegal and unsafe disposal of waste.

Jason Mohr MD and founder of Anyjunk.co.uk, says, "There is quite a bit of regulation in waste, and it's growing. This regulation, coupled with rising costs of disposal, means that a significant percentage of waste gets disposed of in an illegal way."

He explains: "The waste is transported by a carrier that's uninsured, overloaded or unlicensed; fly-tipped; or hazardous waste (like fluorescent tubes, CRTs or paint) ends up being mixed in with general waste to avoid the cost of processing and treating it separately".

Anyjunk arrived at these findings using official figures obtained from councils under the Freedom of Information Act to study illegal tipping in 148 council boroughs across UK earlier this year. Rochdale was one council that experienced a large rise of illegal tipping with 2,352 incidents in 2009/2010, up from 1,934 in 2008/2009.

Mr Mohr adds that they do not want to point fingers but are in the business of raising awareness about the problem, which they wish to change in due course.

He says: "with so much illegality going on and the clear duty of care being placed on producers of waste to dispose of properly, you'd think legitimate operators would make big song and dance about basic documentary compliance - for example, the importance of providing a correctly completed Waste Transference Note for each collection. However, there are still lots of licensed operators who don't appear to."