§ 26. Sir Sydney ChapmanTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on progress in the Environment Agency's role in tackling the dumping of illegal waste. [81232]
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§ Mr. MeacherThe Environment Agency as purchased £120,000 worth of surveillance equipment that may be used in covert surveillance operations to identify fly-tippers attempting illegally to dump waste. This equipment has been distributed to all of the agency's regions for use in both the agency's Tyre Watch campaign to detect illegal dumping of waste tyres and to counter fly-tipping generally. The agency is working with local authorities to deploy such equipment at relevant sites and investigations made using this equipment will lead to prosecutions for those caught.
The agency is also working closely with the Fly-tipping Stakeholder's Forum representing farmers, landowners, local authorities and others with the common aim of combating fly-tipping, better to establish the scale of fly-tipping and to develop measures to detect and prevent it.
The agency investigated some 3,800 incidents in 2001–02 to ensure protection of the environment and has prosecuted a number of fly-tippers. In 2001–02, the agency won 132 successful prosecutions against fly-tippers.