Last month the Environment Agency’s Chief Regulator reported that serious pollution incidents from waste management activities increased by 57% over the previous year. The waste sector accounted for almost a quarter of all serious pollution incidents, more than any other regulated sector. For the overall report see here, and for statistics on pollution incidents see HERE.
An opinion piece by the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM) put these figures into some perspective: Dan Cooke, CIWM’s Director of Policy, Communications and External Affairs, points out that only 50 of 9765 licenced or permitted sites were responsible for the 146 serious (category 1 and 2) incidents recorded, and most sites are well managed – though the growth in illegal sites and criminal waste handling activities is a major concern, and is attracting increasing attention here and elsewhere in the News.
Meanwhile the Environment Agency’s one-off Pollution Incident Report on the water sector for the period 2016-24 makes grim reading to accompany the annual water and sewerage company statistics in the main Regulator’s report.
Attitudes to pollution prevention and management in certain parts of these sectors seem to have shifted over the past couple of decades, from unconscious or conscious incompetence to a deliberate willingness to flout environmental protection requirements in the interests of profit.
Without changes in enforcement and regulation, and a fundamental shift to viewing wastes as a valuable resource, it looks as if many EBNet members involved in technologies for the bioremediation of pollution will not be out of a job in the near future….