Environmental Crime

What can you do to prevent criminality in waste activities?

If you require your waste to be moved or disposed of make sure that you employ a registered waste carrier, use an authorised waste management facility, landfill or exemption.

We publish a list of current registered waste carriers and current waste management facilities or landfills and exemptions on our public registers page.

Make sure that you receive a Waste Transfer Note from the carrier or authorised waste facility for your waste. You must keep the note for two years.

Make sure that you check that the carrier is taking your waste to an authorised waste management facility or landfill.

Sites receiving hard fill such as rubble, or being infilled with clay, for development must have at least a current waste management exemption.

Depending on the type of waste crime, you can report illegal waste activities to your local council or the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) Environmental Crime Unit (ECU).

The Environmental Crime Unit’s purpose is to investigate and prosecute the most serious and persistent environmental crime in Northern Ireland.

In relation to waste crime this involves investigating potential offences with significant volumes, greater than 20m³ (For reference this equates to a fully loaded, bin lorry) and hazardous waste (For example illegally dumped asbestos).

Smaller volumes of non-hazardous fly-tipped waste & domestic burning events, should not be reported via this email address and will not be responded to. Please contact your local council for further advice and guidance in relation to these matters (see link below).

Local councils in Northern Ireland | nidirect

Please note the Environmental Crime Unit will only make further contact where absolutely necessary. In most cases you will not receive any further updates in relation to this email.

The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs may also share information, reports or intelligence received with partner agencies where appropriate.

Email: environmentalcrime@daera-ni.gov.uk

Failure to take due diligence in dealing legally with your waste is likely to result in you:

• being prosecuted
• receiving a criminal record on conviction
• receiving a significant fine (the maximum fine for each waste offence is now £50,000) and/or imprisonment
• being directed to clean up a site with resulting significant costs; and
• being referred for criminal confiscation, or civil recovery by the Serious Organized Crime Agency, where there has been benefit from criminality

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