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<p>The Environment Agency spent a total of 32,446 hours on compliance activities at
7,070 permitted sites across all waste treatment sectors (Hazardous Waste Treatment,
Non-Hazardous & Inert Waste Treatment and Metal Recycling) in 2022.</p><p> </p><p>For
the metal recycling sector specifically, the Environment Agency undertook 1,762 compliance
related activities across 2,152 permitted sites. These compliance activities include
site inspections, site audits, check monitoring, procedure reviews and report/data
reviews. As part of these compliance checks we recorded 1,396 separate permit breaches.
The Environment Agency spent a total 8,811 hours on compliance work in the Metal Recycling
Sector. 7,878 of those hours were spent undertaking site inspections.</p><p> </p><p>The
Environment Agency does not have data available on the proportion of time spent tackling
unpermitted operators in a specific sector. However, we can state that in the financial
year 2021/2022 the Environment Agency spent approximately 130,000 hours or 108 FTE
tackling illegal waste sites, including illegal scrap metal sites. During that same
financial year, a total of 561 illegal waste sites were stopped by the Environment
Agency. As an indicator, 94 of these sites were in the scrap metal sector, which represents
17% of all sites stopped. Activities to tackle illegal waste sites are currently funded
through government grant-in-aid.</p>
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