The Environment Agency and local authorities are the enforcement bodies in England for waste crime, such as fly-tipping. DEFRA works closely with these bodies to develop better prevention, detection and prosecution of fly-tipping offences. In 2008-09, fly-tipping incidents dealt with by local authorities in England fell by over nine per cent. on the previous year.
In particular, DEFRA is:
funding Keep Britain Tidy to provide local authorities with support and advice on their fly-tipping prevention strategies, including training workshops for individual local authorities. Over 70 authorities will have benefited from this training programme by the end of the financial year. Keep Britain Tidy has also provided all local authorities in England with a Knowledge Bank of best practice information and case studies, backed up with anti-fly-tipping campaigning material;
funding the Environment Agency's Waste Crime Innovation Programme, which includes pilot work on new and innovative techniques for tackling fly-tipping, as well as a Landowner Partnership Programme, working with landowner organisations to tackle fly-tipping on private land;
shortly to bring in new powers allowing local authorities and the Environment Agency to seize vehicles suspected of involvement in fly-tipping more easily;
working to strengthen the waste carrier registration system and promote—through more user friendly guidance—the waste duty of care so that the law is better understood and easier for authorities to enforce.