Building Strong Communities

Mandate product & packaging identification:
One of the leading causes of waste crime is the very low chance of detection and prosecution, however most products and a good proportion of packaging already contains coded information. It would be very feasible and cost effective to implement compulsory inclusion of auditable tracking on all products and packaging. As well as serving to reduce other crime such as burglary / theft, an audit trail for all products and packaging would allow highly efficient identification and prosecution of offenders.
Legislation could hold the individual or company at the last available audit point responsible, so if fast food retailers fail to record the identity of customers (e.g. coded vehicle registration or card transaction record on packaging) then they are held liable for any resulting offence. Similarly households failing to get receipts from responsible waste disposal agents are liable if the waste is subsequently fly tipped.
With a strong audit trail and the threat of identification and prosecution for improper disposal, behaviour would soon change.

Enforcement of waste crime in the UK is a joke. Despite the UK having one of the world’s highest density of CCTV surveillance and a range of significant penalties, the chances of detection and prosecution are virtually nil, and this is a major contributor to the problem. The UK’s extensive surveillance network including ANPR could be used to identify waste crime offenders, and much like existing parking enforcement, automated systems could issue fixed penalties which place the responsibility on offenders to appeal.

With the massive increase in smartphones and dashcams, it would be easy to implement a citizen reporting scheme where pictures or footage with clear evidence of littering from vehicles could be submitted and generate automatically issued fixed penalties.

Implement a public awareness campaign to drive home that waste offenders will be identified and prosecuted.