Audit report estimates Mobuoy bill at £107m and suggests waste crime costs £34m a year

Dorinnia Carville’s report on Waste Crime in Northern Ireland examines the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) approach to preventing and tackling illegal waste disposal.

The report references the 635,000 tonnes of illegally deposited waste uncovered by the NIEA on 2012.

"The clean-up costs are currently estimated to fall somewhere between £17 million and £700 million, with the most reliable estimate suggesting a cost of £107 million. It is expected that these costs will largely fall to the public sector to fund,” the report states.

Published on Thursday the Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) paper refers to how Mobuoy is estimated as one of the largest illegal dump sites in Europe.

"Historically, the site was subject to waste depositing, some of which dates back decades. It is estimated that approximately 1.6 million tonnes of waste are currently at the site.

"Part of the site was an NIEA regulated site, which included a landfill facility and a materials recycling facility (MRF), with a long history of repeated non- compliance for various reasons. However, there was also a wholly illegal waste dump on the site.

"The clean-up costs for this dump are currently estimated to fall between £17 million and £700 million and it is expected that costs will largely fall to the public sector to fund,” it states.

Addressing the issue of waste crime generally the report highlights that, as well as causing damage to the environment, it could be estimated to cost around £34 million annually (this includes costs stemming from rectifying environmental and social harm, evaded taxes and lost legitimate business).

The report notes that total potential profits from illegal dumping far outweigh the sanctions. Court fines imposed in relation to waste crime since 2019 amount to approximately £1 million but, in contrast, it is estimated that the total costs of legally disposing of the waste involved in these proceedings would have been £17m.

The audit adds that the number of planned NIEA inspection visits to high-risk sites has significantly reduced in recent years. In 2017-18 there were 12 planned visits per high-risk site per year, but this has now fallen to six or eight (depending on the type of site). Furthermore, no inspections matching waste materials arriving and leaving sites, or verifying waste on-site, have been conducted in the last two years.

Ms. Carville commented: “The existing approach to regulating waste requires significant improvement. The current operation of the inspection regime does not adequately identify or discourage criminality.

"Legal enforcement activities, even when successful, rarely result in polluters remediating the damage caused. Furthermore, financial penalties through fines and confiscation orders are a fraction of the costs of dealing with the waste legally.”

“As a result, damage is being caused to the environment and the cost for remediation often falls to taxpayers. A review of existing arrangements and inspection regimes is recommended to help ensure future expenditure on regulating waste delivers better value for money and more effective environmental protections for NI.”