{"id":612030,"date":"2026-09-02T07:48:05","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T07:48:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/612030\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T07:48:05","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T07:48:05","slug":"it-smelled-like-dead-people-the-plan-to-tackle-englands-illegal-waste-problem-waste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/612030\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It smelled like dead people\u2019: the plan to tackle England\u2019s illegal waste problem | Waste"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere were parents dropping their children off and then heaving from the smell,\u201d says Liz Thompson, 45, who runs Blessings Nursery in Bradford, West Yorkshire<\/a>.<\/p>\n

During the recent heatwaves, the smell from an illegal waste dump on Midland Road, just metres from the nursery, became so unbearable that staff had to keep the doors and windows shut and the children couldn\u2019t play outside.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt smelled like dead people, like really bad rotten food. It was horrible,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The smell, which lingered for weeks, started to impact Thompson\u2019s business, with prospective parents put off from enrolling their children at the nursery. \u201cIt was embarrassing,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\"DroneDrone footage shows illegal dumping of waste on Midland Road in Bradford<\/p>\n

The situation Thompson faced is far from a one-off. The Environment Agency<\/a> received 10,238 reports of suspected waste crime in England in 2025.<\/p>\n

Yorkshire is a particular hotspot, with a new heatmap showing 1,068 reports in 2025, second only to the West Midlands, where a record 1,542 reports of waste crime were filed. These figures are probably underestimated, with just 27% of waste crimes thought to be reported.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a problem that particularly exercises the public and it\u2019s striking that in one of his first moves as prime minister, Andy Burnham<\/a> visited the Midland Road waste dump, declaring that the \u201cdays of making easy money out of waste are over\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Labour MP for Bradford West, Naz Shah, and Andy Burnham spoke to Environment Agency staff at the waste dump last month. Photograph: Scott Heppell\/Reuters<\/p>\n

The dump, which first came on to Bradford<\/a> Council and the Environment Agency\u2019s radar in June after reports of foul smells, had been building for months. HGVs had been entering the site in the dead of night and early hours, with a large excavator unloading and dumping thousands of tonnes of waste.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are really clear signs that this is linked to organised criminality,\u201d says the Environment Agency\u2019s area environment manager, Ben Hocking. Waste crime is profitable for the criminals involved, but costly for the public; approximately 20% of the waste in circulation in England is managed illegally, at a cost<\/a> to the economy of about \u00a31bn a year.<\/p>\n

The clean-up is particularly expensive. Burnham has earmarked three illegal sites where waste needs to be removed: Power Station Road, on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent; Aymer Close, in Runnymede, Surrey; and Midland Road. But Hocking estimates the cost to the taxpayer of cleaning up the Midland Road site alone will be upwards of \u00a3250,000. The cost of cleaning up the Hoads Wood illegal waste dump in Kent<\/a> came to \u00a315m.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe aim is to recoup the costs through the courts, but whether that will be possible for this site remains uncertain,\u201d says Hocking. Criminal investigations are still taking place.<\/p>\n

As part of Burnham\u2019s plans to tackle waste crime, Tracy Brabin, the mayor of West Yorkshire, will be appointed to take a new region-led approach to the problem.<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

Sign up to Down to Earth<\/p>\n

The planet’s most important stories. Get all the week’s environment news – the good, the bad and the essential<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are cracking down on the criminals behind it and giving the Environment Agency the tools it needs to go further and faster,\u201d said the environment secretary, Angela Eagle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But just how well equipped mayoral authorities and the Environment Agency are to tackle organised criminality at this scale remains up for debate, with the House of Lords<\/a> recently accusing the agency of \u201cincompetence\u201d when it comes to waste crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could always do with more funding,\u201d says Hocking, \u201cbut we\u2019re also looking to be more effective with the people that we have. We are really looking to get a better intelligence picture of what\u2019s happening and where.\u201d<\/p>\n

With no set timeline for when the clean-up of the Midland Road waste dump will begin, one woman who works at a nearby youth centre but asked to remain anonymous worries that more hot weather could bring more devastating smells.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really hard for us to work,\u201d she says. The centre had to cancel its youth cooking and exercise classes because the flies and smell made working unbearable.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhoever did this wasn\u2019t thinking about the local people and how it\u2019s affecting them and their businesses,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s really unfair. Whoever dumped this waste needs to be held responsible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThere were parents dropping their children off and then heaving from the smell,\u201d says Liz Thompson, 45, who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-612030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}