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Waste from local authorities in the south-east is among the vast mound of rubbish dumped illegally next to a river in Oxfordshire, it can be revealed.
The finding provides evidence of possible large-scale corruption in waste management, a legal expert has warned.
Household rubbish, partly macerated, remained rotting and stinking in a mountain of waste about 150 metres long and up to 6 metres high on Tuesday, in a field next to the River Cherwell outside Kidlington in Oxfordshire.
There is evidence that some of the waste comes from primary schools and local authorities in south-east England. Paul Powlesland, a barrister and founder of Lawyers for Nature, said the evidence was concerning. He said: “If confirmed this shows the waste is the result of large-scale fraud or corruption in local authority waste management.”
The local MP, Calum Miller, is calling for the government to issue an urgent directive for the clearance of the illegal dump in his constituency before it is too late for the River Cherwell. The site is in a floodplain, and when the Guardian visited on Tuesday the rubbish was already leaching into the river, which has risen after heavy rain over the weekend.
The Environment Agency has mounted what it says is a major criminal investigation into the illegal waste dump. But the agency has said it will not clear up the waste. Instead it said it would try to “ensure those responsible” for the dump clear it up. The agency said it was monitoring the site to protect people and the environment from harm.
“This is a sickening case of large-scale illegal waste dumping and we share the public’s disgust,” an Environment Agency spokesperson said.
“After the Environment Agency was made aware of the incident, we took immediate action – issuing a cease and desist order in July. When the risk of further dumping emerged we subsequently secured a court order to close the site to prevent more waste from being illegally tipped.”
But Miller, the MP for Bicester and Woodstock, said the Environment Agency was not equipped to deal with the unfolding environmental disaster in his constituency. “This incident highlights the fact that organised criminal gangs are carefully planning operations to dump industrial waste in the countryside,” he said.
Organised crime groups are known to be involved in waste crime across the country, in a criminal industry that costs the taxpayer £1bn a year.
Dan Cooke, the director of policy at the Chartered Institute of Waste Management, said any evidence the waste at Kidlington had come from local authorities was “clearly of concern”.
“Local authorities should have traceability of everything that they handle and manage,” he said.
About 38m tonnes of waste, enough to fill Wembley Stadium 35 times, is being illegally dumped every year mainly by established organised crime groups, according to evidence to a recent inquiry by the House of Lords environment committee.
Criminal gangs can make £2,500 for each articulated lorry-load of waste they dump by taking the cost of sending it to landfill from the customer, but diverting the waste to an illegal dump and keeping the cash.
Evidence from the Environment Agency to rural crime partnerships suggests 117 organised crime groups are involved in illegal waste dumping, and 97% of them are also engaged in other criminality, which can include firearms, modern-day slavery and money laundering. But the crime is not considered a priority by the police.
Anya Gleizer, an academic who is a local river guardian for the Cherwell, said: “Clearing it up is going to be really lengthy and expensive. This is already polluting the water. The bare minimum that the Environment Agency could do is put some physical barriers along the heap to prevent plastic waste going into the river. We have begged them to do this.”
She added: “This waste is an environmental hazard to river ecosystems and biodiversity, and a threat to human health. It is full of microplastics which are leaching into the soil and the water. The pile contains hydrocarbons, there are fuel canisters and heavy metal.”
The Environment Agency said after visiting the site in July it continued to visit regularly to monitor the impacts. But officials did not seal off the gates to the site.
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Satellite images show how the three-acre site was until March this year a grassy field. By June it had been dug over and an excavator is visible.
In September, the area was been transformed into a mountain of rubbish – all dumped while the EA said it was monitoring the area.
A local pensioner who rents land next to the illegal dump said he had seen lorries coming in the daytime. He requested not to be named for fear of reprisals.
“When I have been working here what I have seen going on is unbelievable,” he said. “You could hear the lorries coming, even in the day. They came to the gate and blasted on these big foghorns to let them know they wanted to come in. They have had big machines there digging holes.”
Laura Gordon, the Liberal Democrat county councillor for Kidlington North & Otmoor, said the priority was to clear the site urgently.
“The government needs to ringfence the money and it needs to get cleared up as a matter of urgency,” she said. “Waste is already slipping into the River Cherwell. We do not want this waste entering the water system. The whole area is highly liable to flooding, the river is already higher than last week. If we get more rain it could easily flood the site.”
Cooke said the chances of the perpetrators being caught relied upon whether the EA could gather witness evidence of the waste being dumped, and pursue the evidence to trace the waste to its source.
“We would hope that that happens.” he said. “When it is on this scale, the amount of money criminals can make from this mountain of material is huge.”
In evidence to the Lords inquiry it was revealed how criminals exploit the landfill tax of £124 a tonne to dispose of rubbish.
Donald Macphail, the chief operating officer of Veolia Environmental Services, said: “For an artic lorry full of waste you are talking £2,500, which would be a disposal charge. If you can find somewhere to leave that parked or deposit it on someone’s land, you could do three or four loads and make a fortune. You would only have to do that four or five times a year and be very well-off.
“That is what attracts people … there is so much money in it.”
