The objective of this work package is to provide authorities with an up-to-date overview of developments in the illicit waste trade as well as the development of methodologies to measure policy impacts and environmental damage. The first methodology that will be developed can assist enforcement authorities with understanding the impact of EU and global policy on waste crime, so that they can quickly respond to changes. The second methodology is about measuring environmental damage financially, which can be used by prosecutors to identify economic losses caused by the offense. The methodologies will be added to the Toolkit developed in the DOTCOM waste project and used in the trainings.
Activities
Waste Crime Alerts
This activity will collect and analyse the latest information on waste crime to identify trends and possible threats of illegal waste trade, for example to certain geographic locations/routes and the identification of modus operandi for specific waste flows. The collected open source information includes enforcement agency (news) bulletins, outcomes of court cases, relevant publications and policy updates. Partners will be asked to provide input where possible, particularly partners with a connection to the field. Based on the collected information and analysis frequent Waste Crime Alerts will be published every three months, resulting in 8 Waste Crime Alerts, which will be circulated via the WATCH-IT App and other relevant means.
EU and Global Policy Impact Analysis Methodology
This activity will collect and analyse existing methodologies for impact assessment of changes in policies, markets or legislative changes affecting the waste trade and management at EU and Global level. Furthermore it will work to improve these to create models based on causal relationships which can be used to predict increases or decreases in certain illegal shipments. Factors that can be impacted can include shipment routes, frequency of shipments, modus operandi, and involvement of types of companies and so on. Open source trade data (UN Comtrade or e-commerce platforms) will be considered for the identification of changes in prices.
Development of methodologies to measure environmental damage
An overview of different types of damage (death, health risks, environmental damage, contamination of agricultural goods etc.) caused by environmental crime will be mapped, as well as the existing technical methods used to estimate damage and the number of criminal cases they relate to in the Netherlands and partner countries. Based on the overview of types of damage and existing technical methods a method will be unified developed to measure environmental damage. The unified method can be used to generate information on environmental damage caused by waste crime, as well as to support prosecutors in criminal cases to estimate environmental damage and connecting it to economic costs.
