George Monbiot in the Guardian today:

This country’s a dump. I don’t mean that metaphorically. I mean it literally. From the point of view of criminal waste gangs, it is one big potential landfill. The chances of being caught range between minimal and nonexistent, and the penalties are mostly laughable. Successive governments have given criminals a licence to print money.

Last week, the Commons public accounts committee reported that illegal waste dumping is “out of control”. The UK is now blighted with between 8,000 and 13,000 illegal waste sites. Most consist of a few lorry loads. Some contain tens of thousands of tonnes of waste, which might incorporate everything from household products to asbestos, heavy metals and highly toxic, flammable and explosive organic chemicals. The rubbish blows through local neighbourhoods, flows into rivers and seeps into soil and groundwater. And, in most cases, nothing is done.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/01/organised-waste-crime-dump-uk-environment

‘This country’ is clearly just England and there’s no mention of Scotland in the report. George is usually good in Scotland. In 2014 to supported the Yes campaign and said that Scots voting No was like self-harm.

Anyhow, here’s what’s missing in this latest piece of Anglo-centric reporting:

Why there are no fly-tipping ‘super-sites’ for Scottish media to report – more than twice the level of inspection

BBC UK have been reporting 517 incidents of fly tipping, 11 of them ‘super-sites’ like the one above, in England.

BBC Scotland, Scottish Labour and other media, you can be sure, have been scouring the country for something they can use to confirm that things are just as bad here.

Nothing so far. Could this be why?

So a major increase in interventions by police and Sepa inspectors in one year? Newsworthy but not for them?

Comparisons with England where all 11 super-sites are?

I’ll do the last bullet point first. Scotland’s more centralised approach with only one police force is inevitably more efficient.

Back to the interventions/closing down of sites – 167 in Scotland last year so, pro rata, you might expect 1 670 in England but it was only 743, less than half the level of such crucial activity.

How is this possible?

Scotland has roughly 25–30% more police officers per 1,000 population than England & Wales (e.g., ~3.0 vs. ~2.4 per 1,000). This reflects Scotland’s single national force (Police Scotland) structure since 2013, which has historically aimed for higher per-capita resourcing.

Sources:

1. https://beta.sepa.scot/media/gz5layr4/sepa-annual-report-accounts-2024-2025.pdf
2. https://environmentagency.blog.gov.uk/2025/11/19/how-were-tackling-illegal-waste-dumping-and-protecting-our-environment
3. https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN00634/SN00634.pdf

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