How UK keeps exporting mountains of rubbish, which it hates at home, abroad

The UK has a rubbish problem. On Tuesday, a man was arrested in connection with a huge pile of garbage being dumped illegally next to a river in Oxfordshire. The 39-year-old suspect hails from the town of Guildford in southern England.

The development comes after Britain’s Environment Agency (EA) had declared an emergency over the situation. UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, vowing that ‘all available powers’ would be used to hold the person or persons behind it responsible, had described the scene as ‘utterly appalling’.

But what do we know? What happened? How does UK keep exporting mountains of rubbish around the world that it hates at home?

What we know

The mountain of waste was illegally dumped, a process known as fly-tipping in the UK, in a field in Oxfordshire near Kidlington. Fly-tipping is defined as the “illegal deposit of any waste onto land that does not have a licence to accept it". It means throwing away goods quickly before being caught. It can be carried out for small and large items. It is banned under the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

The pile of garbage was measured at 490 feet long and 20 feet high. Footage of the site, including that taken by drones, shows hundreds of tonnes of garbage piled up near the A34 near Kidlington. Authorities had said that the waste increased the risk of pollution for the nearby Cherwell River, which caused outrage from the public. The incident only came to light after environmentalists posted images of the piled-up garbage which comprises processed domestic waste, shredded plastics, polystyrene, tyres, and other household items.

The environmental agency has said it first became aware of the issue in July. It then issued a cease and desist letter to the owner of the site to stop further garbage from piling up. However, suspicions that the site was used for dumping had been raised earlier this summer. The owner of the neighbouring site said he witnessed trash being dumped in the landfill every night for months.

Authorities in Britain including the EA have opened a criminal investigation into the matter. Anna Burns, the Environment Agency’s area director for The Thames, told the BBC, “The appalling illegal waste dump in Kidlington has rightly provoked outrage over the potential consequences for the community and environment.”

“We have been working round the clock with the South East Regional Organised Crime Unit to bring the perpetrators to justice and make them pay for this offence. Our investigative efforts have secured an arrest today, which will be the first step in delivering justice for residents and punishing those responsible.”

The EA has said there is thus far no evidence the garbage is breaking down and seeping into the river. The site remains cordoned off both to the public and the media on health and safety grounds.

“After officers became aware of continued criminal activity on site in October, a court order was sought and granted to close the site. Since this was granted on 23 October, no further tipping has taken place. For both safety reasons and because the site is now a live crime scene, members of the public should avoid entering the site," the EA said in a statement.

It added that its officials visited the site last week and agreed to deploy barriers in order to prevent any seepage into the river. “They will now be working with urgency to get these in place to help minimise the movement of waste moving into the River Cherwell if heavy rainfall or flooding occurs, and protect the environment.”

Fines for fly-tipping in the UK can range from anywhere from $1,320  Rs (1.17 lakh) and 12 months in jail to $66,000 (Rs 58.87 lakh) and up to five years in prison.

How UK keeps exporting mountains of rubbish

But this hasn’t stopped the United Kingdom from exporting hundreds of thousands of tonnes of trash abroad every year. A new report by the consultancy firm Hybrid Economics shows that Britain’s plastic exports alone increased by five per cent in 2024 to nearly 600,000 tonnes of waste.

This isn’t surprising given that the UK produces the second most plastic waste per person. Around 1.7 billion items of plastic are discarded every week in the UK – around 90 billion items per year per person. In the first part of the year, exports of UK’s plastic to Indonesia, which is struggling with its own environmental crisis, skyrocketed to over 24,000 tonnes.

Data shows that exports of UK plastic waste to Asia skyrocketed in June with 3,300 tonnes sent to Indonesia alone, 6,800 tonnes to Malaysia, and 9,300 tonnes to non-Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations.

This practice, wherein developed nations in the Global North offload their waste to the Global South, is known as waste colonialism. The report says that Britain’s export of plastic creates crises for nations like Indonesia which take it. Authorities say much of the plastic that is recycled abroad is burned, dumped or processed poorly. This results in workers, children, refugees and the impoverished taking in toxic fumes and hazardous chemicals – which has happened in both Turkey and Malaysia.

Worse, the UK is depriving itself of an opportunity to make things better at home, the report adds.

The report says UK could end its reliance on exporting plastic waste by 2030 to support the creation of 5,400 new jobs and take responsibility for the environmental impact of its waste.

The report said the UK could construct around 15 new recycling facilities by the end of the decade with over $1.056 billion (Rs 94,161 crore) of private investment. This in turn would generate revenue worth $1.188 billion Rs (105,018 crore) per year including $132 million (Rs 11,667 crore) in new tax revenues.

The report says the practice also negatively impacts the British recycling industry. Campaigners say they want to make it cheaper to recycle plastic waste in the UK rather than simply export it overseas.

Neville Hill, a partner at Hybrid Economics, told The Guardian, “Ending exports of unprocessed plastic packaging waste by 2030 would allow the UK to take control of its environmental responsibilities and seize a clear economic opportunity. Our analysis shows the sector can expand significantly with no call on public funds, provided government sets the right framework.”

With inputs from agencies