Organised criminals cash in as illegal dumping becomes ‘new narcotics'

In a once-scenic ancient woodland outside Ashford, Kent, an enormous biohazard cleanup operation is under way to remove the toxic aftermath of the criminal dumping of 35,000 tonnes of rubbish.

- Sandra Laville Environment correspondent

Tankers come and go along a road built for the purpose. Behind metal gates, away from public view, specialists in hazmat suits dig through the mountain of waste dumped on an industrial scale in a woodland that is a site of special scientific interest.

The £15m cleanup of Hoad's Wood began last summer, five years after residents first complained about illegal dumping in the protected woodland. In some cases they provided the names of companies involved and footage of the activities to the police, the local authority and the Environment Agency.

It took a tenacious, high-profile campaign by residents and environmental groups, along with the threat of a class action, to force the Environment Agency to clean up the woodland.

Now, as organised criminals increase their involvement in waste crime, which has been called the "new narcotics", the scale of the environmental disaster they are creating is growing.

There are another six illegal dumps of similar size or larger in sites from Lancashire to Cornwall that are known to the Environment Agency.

But the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste - from household rubbish to toxic rubber, building materials and heavy metals - remain with little or no prospect of any multimillion-pound clear-up in the foreseeable future.

Located on farmland and business estates, in some cases the hazardous waste has been there for years. Two large dumps - one near Sittingbourne in Kent and one in Camborne in Cornwall - are still taking illegal waste despite being known to the Environment Agency.

It says that in Kent investigations are ongoing "with a view to stopping activity", and that in Cornwall large-scale dumping of waste has been stopped. But environmental campaigners argue stronger action needs to be taken much sooner by authorities to stop the dumping and prevent further environmental damage and hazards to the public.