Waste Not?

You might expect the Environmental Agency (EA) to have a powerful controlling role in pollution and waste disposal in England. George Monbiot points out that the EA has admitted that reports of pollution; illegal dumping of waste and other environmental damage are all increasing. It maintains, however, that grants for incident management have been reduced by 90% in the last 10 years (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/24/dead-goldfish-licensed-waste-disposer-system-falling-apart). The EA have consequently instructed all its staff to only 'routinely spend time' on things that happen in areas, where they have defined legal responsibilities. The EA currently limits its work to incidents at regulated sites. Such incidents would involve radioactive waste, illegal waste (e.g. asbestos) and flood control. The EA also have responsibility for the release of raw sewage into rivers and seas by the privatised Water Companies. Recent reports suggest they are unlikely to get a 'gold star' for their efforts in this respect. For anything else, the complainant is to be urged to try to solve the problem by contacting the polluter. The EA admit that the UK has circa 250,000 unlicenced (i.e. illegal) disposers of waste. Just to demonstrate how pathetic the system has become, Monbiot registered his long-dead pet goldfish as an upper-tier, carrier, broker and dealer in waste. He did this is less than 4 minutes on the EA's website. 'Mr Goldfish' is still listed, a month later.