The LIFE SMART Waste project – Smarter Regulation of Waste in Europe – set an innovative pan-European partnership between key bodies involved with addressing waste crime.
The project was funded under the LIFE+ programme and it runs from June 2014 until May 2020.
Highlights
During nearly six years, the LIFE SMART Waste project developed and demonstrated innovative ways of understanding, tackling and reducing the issue of waste crime. For an highlight of this work, read the project’s final newsletter featuring the Layman's report summarising LIFE SMART Waste’s work, results and recommendations; INTERPOL’s strategic analysis report on global plastic waste management; the project’s final conference… It also gives a glimpse of the capacity-building resources that can be used to help predict emerging criminality in waste markets, detect problematic waste operators and enable more effective collaboration to address waste crime. All the resources will be available on the project's website (until May 2025).
THE PROJECT IN BRIEF
The goal of the LIFE SMART Waste project was to demonstrate innovative ways of understanding, tackling and reducing waste-related crime.
LIFE SMART Waste:
- Developed innovative intelligence gathering and analytical approaches to identify and understand significant waste crime issues (current and future) associated with “challenging” waste streams, problem waste operators and illegal waste activities;
- Targeted the environmental, social and economic problems created by waste crime;
- Analysed and reported on the difficulties that enforcement agencies face in identifying, understanding and tackling waste crime;
- Developed new and innovative ways of working to ultimately reduce the impact of waste crime in European states.
A Layman's report, suitable for both technical and non-technical audiences, summarises the work, results and recommendations of the LIFE SMART Waste project.