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Good practice Imported

England's Environment Agency Turns AI on Waste Crime — Targeting the 73% of Cases Nobody Reports

United Kingdom · Bristol · See the United Kingdom profile · See the Bristol profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 74% 47/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

The Environment Agency is embedding machine learning into its compliance analytics — flagging anomalies in waste returns and prioritising inspections — after its own 2025 survey found only 27% of waste crimes are ever reported to the regulator.

27%
Waste crimes reported to the regulator (2025 survey)
150 of 295
Repeat poor-performing permits in lowest 3 compliance bands (2024)
>90%
Enforcement notices going to the waste sector
England's Environment Agency Turns AI on Waste Crime — Targeting the 73% of Cases Nobody Reports

Details

Maturity
Pilot
Promoter
Environment Agency (England) — Regulatory Compliance Service & Operational Waste Intelligence and Analysis Unit
Period
2025-2026
Keywords
environmental regulation, compliance & enforcement, machine learning, waste management

Context

The Environment Agency's own 2025 National Waste Crime Survey found only 27% of waste crimes are reported to the regulator; in 2024, 150 of the 295 waste-sector permits in the lowest three compliance bands were repeat poor performers, and over 90% of the agency's enforcement notices already go to the waste sector.

Activities

In an August 2026 update, Chief Regulator Jo Nettleton set out plans to embed AI and machine learning into the agency's Regulatory Compliance Service, shifting from routine time-based inspections to a risk-driven model: tools will automatically analyse waste returns for anomalies, build compliance profiles to target inspections, optimise assessment scheduling, and cross-reference economic/insolvency data to flag firms at risk of illegal dumping before they fail, combined in a new Operational Waste Intelligence and Analysis Unit with satellite, drone and financial-crime data. Mandatory digital waste tracking for waste-receiving sites begins rolling out in October 2026.

Results

This is a launch-stage programme: the August 2026 announcement describes the AI system's design and the compliance data motivating it, but reports no post-deployment results yet.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years)
Staffing & skills
Environment Agency Regulatory Compliance Service, New Operational Waste Intelligence and Analysis Unit

Conditions for success

  • Mandatory digital waste tracking for waste-receiving sites (from Oct 2026) will feed the AI models with real-time data, a prerequisite for the anomaly-detection approach
  • Combines waste-returns analytics with satellite, drone and financial/insolvency data in one intelligence unit rather than siloed sources

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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