Attachments
3. WASTE CRIME AND MARINE POLLUTION CRIME
Waste generation continues to increase year on year. Global solid municipal waste generation is predicted to outpace population growth, reaching 34 billion tons by 2050 with one-third of this waste suspected to not be managed in an environmentally-sound manner. This does not include other larger waste streams such as construction and demolition waste (2 times bigger), agricultural waste (4 times bigger), and industrial waste (17 times bigger) as compared to municipal waste. A profitable, complex management system is vulnerable to infiltration by criminal organizations as well as crimes by legitimate actors.
Part 3a of the Global Analysis on Crimes that Affect the Environment focuses on Waste Crime and Trafficking. Illegal waste disposal or trade can be lucrative when waste management and disposal services are offered at prices below the costs of following the processes and procedures required by law. This reduces the costs for those who need to dispose of waste, as well as for the disposal service providers who do not follow the law. This can take place domestically or transnationally and involve waste management companies, waste brokers, consignees, transport companies as part of corporate or organized crime. The five main waste categories by number of internationally recorded cases of waste trafficking under the Basel Convention between 2016 and 2023 are electrical and electronic waste (e-waste), mixed waste, end-of-life vehicles and engines, plastic, and metal and metal-bearing wastes. The data, both for transnational illegal trade and domestic waste crimes, are limited and geographically skewed meaning the overall picture of waste crime and trafficking is likely incomplete. However, Part 3a provides a global state of knowledge on what is understood about the actors, modus operandi, vulnerabilities, supply chain, and responses to waste crime and trafficking.