Waste: Crime
(asked on 10th July 2025) - View Source
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent estimate his Department has made of the annual cost to the public purse of (a) waste crime and (b) illegal waste exports.
Answered by
Mary Creagh
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This question was answered on 18th July 2025
The Environmental Services Association (ESA) estimated in 2021 that waste crime costs the economy in England about £1 billion per year of which at least £42 million per year could be attributed to illegal waste exports. (see here: ESA_Cost_of_Waste_Crime.pdf.) The same report estimates that £499 million or 54% is borne by the public sector.