Tinney, Surrey Police’s lead for rural crime, said waste crime ranged from rubbish being fly-tipped from a van to “multi-million pound organised crime groups dumping a 44-tonne lorry’s worth of waste on to the ground”.
He describes fly tipping as a “really significant problem” in Surrey.
“It’s not just the obvious in terms of the blight on the landscape, there is a real economic impact to this.”
The police superintendent said if illegal waste was dumped on land owned by farmers, who used it to grow crops and feed the population, it was then “on them” to clear the waste.
“They have to pay and some of this could be hazardous material,” Tinney said.