:00:11. > :00:15.This is illegal fly-tipping on an epic new scale. The work of some of
:00:15. > :00:17.Britain's richest waste dumpers. What have you done with the money
:00:18. > :00:25.Mr Steel? Criminals who've littered our countryside with massive piles
:00:25. > :00:28.of used tyres - many large enough to be seen from space. Some are on
:00:28. > :00:38.the run in the sun having pocketed the money British motorists pay to
:00:38. > :00:40.
:00:40. > :00:42.have their used tyres recycled. It's a rip-off so lucrative
:00:42. > :00:46.criminal gangs now smuggle our waste tyres and spread pollution
:00:46. > :00:53.half way around the world. These are people that are making money
:00:53. > :00:56.and laughing in the face of the law and, indeed, the general public.
:00:56. > :00:58.And on the High Stree, motorists are handing over millions to help
:00:58. > :01:07.the environment - but secret filming reveals sometimes what
:01:07. > :01:17.we're told is wrong. Yeah. The Government now insist that you have
:01:17. > :01:24.
:01:24. > :01:27.to charge a disposal fee. Majorca. A sunny place for some shady people.
:01:27. > :01:37.Amid the big yachts and beautiful surroundings, I've come on the
:01:37. > :01:39.
:01:39. > :01:44.trail of two British criminals who are on the run. This unlikely pair
:01:44. > :01:52.of Bonnie and Clyde's are facing a possible five-year prison sentence.
:01:52. > :02:00.It's taken weeks of undercover investigation to track them down...
:02:00. > :02:09.And now I'm trying to draw them to this cafe in the capital, Palma.
:02:09. > :02:15.But they don't show up - for now. Steven and Amy Marlow ran a
:02:15. > :02:24.recycling scam here in North Wales. They collected fees from garages to
:02:24. > :02:34.dispose of thousands of waste tyres. Then they would rent farm
:02:34. > :02:37.warehouses to put them in. Like this one. Three years ago, they
:02:37. > :02:42.told the owner Maria Burt they were bringing in a shredding machine to
:02:42. > :02:52.help recycle the tyres. So he started bringing the tyres in and
:02:52. > :02:56.from that end started piling them up? Yes. On top of each other?
:02:56. > :03:00.How many tyres would he bring in at any one time, do you know? Erm it,
:03:00. > :03:04.it could be 50 or 60 tyres or it could have been a couple of hundred.
:03:04. > :03:07.As the tyre mountain grew. Still no sign of a shredding machine. He was
:03:07. > :03:10.saying, "Well, erm, I haven't got quite enough money to purchase the
:03:10. > :03:13.machine." And when he did have the money he said, "Oh, erm, it's going
:03:13. > :03:18.to be delivered in a fortnight's time." And then when it didn't
:03:18. > :03:21.appear it was, "Oh there's been a delay. It will come." and so on.
:03:21. > :03:30.Then one day Steven and Amy Marlow disappeared. They'd been there just
:03:30. > :03:35.over five weeks. In the five or six weeks, how many tyres did he put in
:03:35. > :03:40.the site? About at that,000. 25,000? Yes.
:03:40. > :03:50.And this is what Maria was left with.
:03:50. > :03:52.
:03:52. > :03:56.Tyres pile up inside... And out. The Marlow s few weeks of work
:03:57. > :04:01.netted them more than �is a,000. Every morning you wake up, the
:04:01. > :04:06.first thing that comes into your head is you have to get rid of the
:04:06. > :04:11.tyres, how do you do it? I have not got the money to do it, how do I
:04:11. > :04:17.get the money Maria has borrowed over �30,000 from friends and
:04:17. > :04:19.family to get some of the tyres taken away. The job was finished by
:04:20. > :04:25.the Environment Agency in January at taxpayers' expense because of
:04:25. > :04:29.the fire risk it posed to local communities. The Marlows moved on
:04:29. > :04:34.to another victim near by and dumped another 1,000 tyres and
:04:34. > :04:39.disappeared. The vast majority of motorists
:04:39. > :04:44.willingly pay garages and tyre fitters an environmental charge to
:04:44. > :04:50.recycle used tyres. More than �55 million is raised this way each
:04:50. > :04:54.year, but the garages pay others to recycle the tyres. Sometimes people
:04:54. > :04:59.like the Marlows. You are paying a price to have the
:04:59. > :05:02.tyres disposed of in an environmentally friendly manner,
:05:02. > :05:08.but you are being ripped off by the criminals. They are making money
:05:08. > :05:12.and laughing in the face of the law and, indeed, the general public.
:05:12. > :05:20.Back in Majorca, we are still trying to meet up with the Marlows.
:05:20. > :05:29.Life on the run doesn't seem too bad.
:05:29. > :05:34.# You know I love you. # Steven Marlow is enjoying a rock and roll
:05:34. > :05:38.lifestyle with the money he has made. He plays in a band and has
:05:38. > :05:47.changed his name to Stevie Ray to keep one step ahead of the
:05:47. > :05:52.authorities. We've arranged a meeting, telling
:05:52. > :05:59.him we want to hire his band, but he doesn't show up.
:05:59. > :06:07.Then he tells us to meet him in niche Magaluf.
:06:07. > :06:16.Again, he doesn't show. Just as we're about to give up, we
:06:16. > :06:22.get a tip-off. He's at a bar back in the capital.
:06:22. > :06:26.I'm from BBC Panorama. You are on the run. Why are you on the run?
:06:26. > :06:31.You dumped thousands of tyres. Tell us why you dumped thousands of
:06:31. > :06:38.tyres on innocent people and then come running here too? Are you
:06:38. > :06:42.going back to face justice in the UK, Stevie Ray? Steven Marlow is a
:06:42. > :06:47.small link in a chain that deals with the 55 million tyres that are
:06:47. > :06:51.taken off Britain's cars and trucks every year.
:06:51. > :06:55.There are strict environmental controls about how they should be
:06:55. > :06:59.disposed of. But the reality can be different.
:06:59. > :07:05.Vast illegal dumps in the British countryside, some so big they can
:07:05. > :07:11.be picked up by satellites in space. 100,000 tyres here left on a remote
:07:11. > :07:16.farm in the Worcestershire countryside.
:07:16. > :07:20.Further north, 300,000 were abandoned in an industrial estate
:07:20. > :07:25.in Mexborough, Yorkshire. In the south again, to the biggest of them
:07:25. > :07:34.all, at one point there were over 2 million tyres dumped at this site
:07:34. > :07:38.in the Hampshire countryside. This should not be happening.
:07:39. > :07:43.The so-called green fee we pay to tyre fitters and garages was
:07:43. > :07:53.introduced by the industry to ensure that the tyres are recycled.
:07:53. > :07:58.It is usualally between �1 and �2 a tire -- tyre, but it is optional.
:07:58. > :08:08.So, what happens if you ask about it when you visit big High Street
:08:08. > :08:22.
:08:22. > :08:25.That's wrong. It is nothing to do with the Government.
:08:25. > :08:35.Event eally, the fitter agrees that our reporter could take the tyres
:08:35. > :09:04.
:09:05. > :09:10.At a second Halfords, the optional So even if we dispose of the tyres
:09:10. > :09:14.ourselves, this branch of Halfords would still charge a disposal fee.
:09:14. > :09:18.We visited several other High Street tyre fitters and they gave
:09:18. > :09:28.us confusing information, but Halfords got it plain wrong.
:09:28. > :10:00.
:10:00. > :10:03.So, where is the money we pay tyre fitters and garages going to? They
:10:03. > :10:09.use some of it to pay tyre collectors, who are licensed by the
:10:09. > :10:13.Environment Agency to recycle our old waste tyres.
:10:14. > :10:22.We collect in the region of about 20 tons a day.
:10:22. > :10:27.You can see that this is is a general daily amount of tyres.
:10:27. > :10:31.Andy Carlin's firm collects from dozens of garages around Gloucester
:10:31. > :10:35.and Worcestershire. This will be gone, it will be
:10:35. > :10:41.processed today... The green fee garages charge the motorists has
:10:41. > :10:45.barely changed. Commonly it is about �1.50 per tyre. However, Andy
:10:45. > :10:48.Carlin has seen the money he gets from the garages drofplt
:10:49. > :10:55.Four years ago you could get a good price.
:10:55. > :10:59.It was from over �1 a tyre, 85 pence. Now it is being driven lower
:10:59. > :11:06.than that. It is down to as low as 65 pence.
:11:07. > :11:14.That is a big cut. Industry sniders say that the fee
:11:14. > :11:19.is misused as a profit stream for the tyre fitters and retailers.
:11:19. > :11:24.The green fee for the property disposal of tyres is a good system,
:11:24. > :11:30.if that green fee is used appropriately. Unfortunately, as
:11:30. > :11:34.time has gone on, and it has been in existence for 30 years, a few
:11:34. > :11:40.retailers have taken advantage of this, they have charged the
:11:40. > :11:50.customer for the safe disposal and then used that money, really, to
:11:50. > :11:54.
:11:54. > :11:57.increase their profits. The recycling fee motorists pay
:11:57. > :12:07.raises �50 million a year, but here is a scene that betrays that green
:12:07. > :12:17.promise. But this is the dirty secret of the
:12:17. > :12:18.
:12:18. > :12:24.motorindustry, millions of tyres like this dumped illegally around
:12:24. > :12:28.the UK. This site in Yorkshire contains 120,000 tyres, they were
:12:28. > :12:35.dumped by a Lincolnshire tyre collector called Stevie Steel.
:12:35. > :12:41.Stevie Steel charges garages 70 pence for every tyre that they took
:12:41. > :12:46.away from the site before dumping them here and walking away with
:12:46. > :12:51.�80,000 in cash. For two years, his fleet of vans travelled across the
:12:51. > :12:55.country picking up tyres. The fee undercut all of the legitimate
:12:55. > :13:03.rivals, the garages did not question the low price.
:13:03. > :13:05.It meant more profit for them. Stpil -- still, Stevie Steel then
:13:05. > :13:10.dumped over 1 million tyres in England.
:13:10. > :13:15.Basically, what he did, when the guard was down of the land owners
:13:15. > :13:20.and the like, he exploited it by dumping the tyres wholesale without
:13:20. > :13:23.a regard to what he was to do with them or to deal with them in a
:13:23. > :13:28.legal manner. Stevie Steel notified the
:13:28. > :13:33.Environment Agency that he was to restore tyres in the thousands, but
:13:33. > :13:37.he was actually dealing in hundreds of thousands. Stevie Steel was
:13:37. > :13:42.prosecuted and spent four months in jail. The court ordered him to pay
:13:42. > :13:47.back up to �2.5 million. Do you have anything to say to the
:13:47. > :13:51.people who have to clean up the mess? What have you done with the
:13:51. > :13:56.money, Stevie Steel? Stevie Steel says he spent it. He's been served
:13:56. > :14:04.with a proceeds of crime order to pay it back. So far, he has handed
:14:04. > :14:08.So who's regulating the disposal of tyres in Britain? At the moment the
:14:08. > :14:12.industry does it itself. The Tyre Recovery Association audits, and
:14:12. > :14:21.speaks for, the country's big tyre recycling firms. These companies
:14:21. > :14:24.process up to 80% of used tyres in this country. I think self-
:14:24. > :14:26.regulation works well.... We operate a voluntary best practice
:14:26. > :14:29.scheme in this country, the Responsible Recycler Scheme, which
:14:29. > :14:39.covers between 70 and 80% of nationalising, and that's the
:14:39. > :14:42.largest scheme of its sort in Europe. The problem we face is that
:14:42. > :14:52.at the margins, there are operators who work to different standards to
:14:52. > :14:52.
:14:52. > :14:55.It's left to the Environment Agency to police those on the margins. A
:14:55. > :15:05.convoy of police and Environment Agency officials is off to raid a
:15:05. > :15:06.
:15:06. > :15:09.Gives us a shout when you are ready and we will come in. There are four
:15:09. > :15:13.males who have been detained at this present moment in time. We are
:15:13. > :15:16.not sure of their identities. We are going to go in there in a few
:15:16. > :15:26.moments when the police have secured the area Hundreds of tyre
:15:26. > :15:26.
:15:26. > :15:29.collectors are outside the industry's self regulation scheme.
:15:29. > :15:32.The Environment Agency are getting tough, like you see today, but do
:15:32. > :15:35.they have the resources to police the collectors, the garages and the
:15:35. > :15:41.retailers? They have �17 million a year to tackle waste crime. Not
:15:41. > :15:46.enough, say those representing the tyre recycling industry. The main
:15:46. > :15:49.issue in all of this is enforcement and observance of duty of care. And
:15:49. > :15:52.if some people at the margins of our business decide to disregard
:15:52. > :16:00.their duty of care, and if the enforcement regime is inadequate,
:16:00. > :16:07.then we will continue to have Those problems include a series of
:16:07. > :16:12.tyre dump fires across Britain. An alleged illegal dump went up in
:16:12. > :16:22.flames in Swansea last year. Some local residents began filming,
:16:22. > :16:23.
:16:23. > :16:33.little knowing how long the smoke Day two of the fire and the
:16:33. > :16:33.
:16:33. > :16:41.Environment Agency is checking what One man, however, is taking no
:16:41. > :16:47.risks. The gas mask could come in useful. Smoke from tyre fires often
:16:47. > :16:49.contains hydrogen cyanide. generate a lot of black smoke,
:16:49. > :16:51.which is composed of very fine particles, which can penetrate
:16:51. > :16:57.quite deeply into the lungs carrying cancer-causing chemicals
:16:57. > :17:01.in to the body. You also then have to spray water on these fires to
:17:01. > :17:07.put them out, and that can carry a large number of chemicals with the
:17:07. > :17:15.water into the local watercourses. The Swansea fire lasted three weeks,
:17:15. > :17:25.costing �1.5 million to put out. Three people have been arrested and
:17:25. > :17:26.
:17:26. > :17:29.Job creation through the green economy is a government priority.
:17:29. > :17:35.In Exeter, Henry Hodge has a recycling business which should be
:17:35. > :17:43.a great British success story. He has a contract to deliver thousands
:17:43. > :17:46.of tyre bales to a landfill several miles away. The bales are used to
:17:46. > :17:49.line the site, to stop toxic chemicals leaking into the
:17:49. > :17:53.groundwater. As a waste product, it's more environmentally friendly
:17:53. > :18:00.than the quarried stone its replaces. However, Henry has a
:18:00. > :18:05.problem. His supply of tyres is drying up. It's a shrinking number
:18:05. > :18:08.of tyres that we can actually get hold of at the moment. Is this
:18:08. > :18:15.threatening your business? It is having a knock-on effect directly
:18:15. > :18:18.to our business, yes. What kind of effect is that having? It's whether
:18:18. > :18:21.we can actually pitch for these contracts for the large number of
:18:21. > :18:25.bales for next year, or are we going to have to go back to our
:18:25. > :18:27.clients and say, "Sorry, next year you're going to have to revert to
:18:27. > :18:30.using stone." Panorama has found recycling firms like his are
:18:30. > :18:40.already facing closure or making redundancies because of a shortage
:18:40. > :18:41.
:18:41. > :18:44.of tyres. The crisis is spreading to other industries. In this cement
:18:44. > :18:50.factory, shredded tyres are used as fuel - a more environmentally
:18:50. > :18:55.friendly and cheaper alternative to coal. But now they can't find
:18:55. > :18:59.enough tyres. Naturally we're very concerned, having invested millions
:18:59. > :19:02.of pounds in processes and systems to make sure that we can burn tyres
:19:02. > :19:11.in a safe and sound manner, meeting all the legislations, meeting all
:19:11. > :19:18.the environmental limits that that we have to. So where are Britain's
:19:18. > :19:23.tyres disappearing to? A clue lies in the e-mails Henry Hodge has been
:19:24. > :19:27.receiving. This is something that started over a year ago, probably
:19:27. > :19:37.18 months ago. We would get e-mails through, requesting volumes of tyre
:19:37. > :19:43.
:19:44. > :19:50.bales for the export market. the people in the industry were
:19:50. > :19:53.getting these e-mails? Everyone that was tyre recycling, be it
:19:53. > :19:56.shredding or baling, was getting an e-mail a week, or more, from
:19:56. > :20:00.different agents requesting the volume. And it was only when I
:20:00. > :20:03.spoke to colleagues in the industry that we got an idea of the scale of
:20:03. > :20:09.the demand from Asia. And what we saw around the country certainly
:20:09. > :20:12.suggests there is a surge in exports going on. This dump of over
:20:12. > :20:21.4,000 tyres in Newport is being cleared and will be shipped to
:20:21. > :20:23.South Korea to be used as fuel. This dump of 150,000 tyres is in
:20:23. > :20:26.Worcestershire. Its final destination is South Korea. And
:20:26. > :20:34.Britain's biggest ever illegal dump, in Hampshire - that once topped 2
:20:34. > :20:37.million tyres -also being emptied to fuel the Asian economic boom.
:20:37. > :20:45.It's entirely legal to export waste tyres to South Korea, where factory
:20:45. > :20:53.Not so in some other Asian countries, where they burn tyres in
:20:53. > :20:57.factories and workshops with few environmental controls. Henry Hodge
:20:57. > :21:07.can do very little but pass on some of the more suspect e-mail offers
:21:07. > :21:08.
:21:08. > :21:12.We're going to investigate one of those e-mails ourselves. It comes
:21:12. > :21:15.from a company called Trading 128, which ships on a regular basis from
:21:15. > :21:22.the UK, and now it wants to export Henry's tyres to Malaysia to be
:21:22. > :21:24.recycled. It's legal to export tyres to Malaysia. Trading 128
:21:24. > :21:31.provided official documents showing Henry's tyres would go to a
:21:31. > :21:39.recycling plant in one of Malaysia's biggest container ports.
:21:39. > :21:48.We got someone to go and check it out. Our man sent us some photos of
:21:49. > :21:51.the address. But the recycling plant doesn't exist. There were no
:21:52. > :21:54.tyres there and no-one had ever heard of a recycling business. So
:21:54. > :21:56.where would Henry's tyres have been sent to? Panorama has discovered
:21:57. > :22:06.that Trading128 were working with this company - Ancelot
:22:07. > :22:10.
:22:10. > :22:14.Ancerlot have told us they only export tyres from the UK to
:22:14. > :22:17.Malaysia. And now we have this - documents from a shipping company.
:22:17. > :22:21.Proof that this company was picking up tyres in the UK and shipping
:22:21. > :22:31.them all the way to Vietnam. Exporting waste tyres to Vietnam is
:22:31. > :22:34.illegal. But Panorama has details of the traffic from four locations
:22:34. > :22:37.- Kidwelly and Caramarthen, Lichfield and Elsenham. In the last
:22:37. > :22:46.year a total of 1.5 million tyres went to Malaysia and then illegally
:22:46. > :22:51.Here, waste tyres are big business and their movement is controlled by
:22:51. > :22:57.organised crime gangs. They take the tyres on a ten-hour lorry
:22:57. > :23:02.journey up the country, close to the border with China. There, they
:23:02. > :23:08.are smuggled illegally across the border. And then burnt in
:23:08. > :23:14.unregulated kilns and furnaces that make ceramics. Not the picture
:23:14. > :23:16.British motorists had in mind when they hand over their recycling fee.
:23:16. > :23:19.We're talking about serious and organised criminals. These aren't
:23:19. > :23:24.people that just dump a few tyres, we're talking about major, major
:23:24. > :23:27.money that can actually be made from this type of illegal activity.
:23:27. > :23:31.They're very complex matters and very complex investigations that my
:23:31. > :23:41.officers deal with. We're back looking for the man behind Trading
:23:41. > :23:43.
:23:43. > :23:47.128. The owner is a Mr Chu Wong. He's also the director of this
:23:47. > :23:51.Chinese takeaway in Exeter. When we went to speak to him, he wasn't
:23:51. > :23:54.there. A few days after our visit, he quit as the director of this
:23:54. > :23:59.restaurant. He's also left the home address where he registered his
:23:59. > :24:09.tyre trading business. Despite a number of requests, he has failed
:24:09. > :24:12.
:24:12. > :24:19.to explain how 1.5 million tyres Official figures say only 2 million
:24:19. > :24:26.used tyres a year are exported from the UK. Our investigation shows
:24:26. > :24:28.that just one company can account for three quarters of that traffic.
:24:28. > :24:38.It suggests the official figures seriously underestimate the volume
:24:38. > :24:40.
:24:40. > :24:49.of exports and the scale of There are certainly more raids,
:24:49. > :24:51.like this one in the North of We are carrying out an
:24:51. > :24:54.investigation in relation to the illegal exportation of waste tyres
:24:54. > :24:57.to Haiphong in Vietnam in 2011. We have reasons to suspect that these
:24:57. > :25:04.premises are responsible for this exportation and that the persons
:25:04. > :25:07.involved in it are present at this time. With Asian buyers covering
:25:07. > :25:16.the shipping fees and no disposal costs to bear in the UK, there's
:25:16. > :25:21.money to be made. First of all, as I said, I am going to bring a dog
:25:21. > :25:24.in that is trained to sniff out cash. That's its primary function.
:25:24. > :25:27.We'll go around here and just see if there are any large amounts of
:25:27. > :25:30.cash secreted anywhere. So you suspect they might have money?
:25:30. > :25:34.There might be, the money is going somewhere so we need to see if we
:25:34. > :25:36.can get our hands on it. sniffer dog didn't find any cash.
:25:36. > :25:41.But there are certainly plenty of tyres. Thousands of them. All
:25:41. > :25:50.collected from garages around here. If convicted, there's a maximum
:25:50. > :25:53.sentence of up to two years in DEFRA - the Government ministry
:25:53. > :25:58.that oversees this sector - declined to put up a minister to
:25:58. > :26:03.talk about the tyre recycling industry. In a statement, it said
:26:03. > :26:06.it was up to the market to regulate this area. Critics say the free
:26:06. > :26:15.market has failed to ensure more of the recycling fee is invested in a
:26:15. > :26:18.UK-wide recycling system for tyres. If the green fee collected was
:26:18. > :26:25.reinvested into the recycling system, what difference would that
:26:25. > :26:30.have made to the landscape You might have seen more use of
:26:30. > :26:33.tyres in a wider variety of energy recovery facilities. But sadly, we
:26:33. > :26:43.seem to have come down with fewer options rather than expanding those
:26:43. > :26:44.
:26:44. > :26:47.Back at his yard in the West Country, Henry Hodge won't export
:26:47. > :26:53.tyres on principal. He thinks British waste should be recycled in
:26:53. > :26:59.Britain. Our photos of the non- existent tyre recycling facility in
:26:59. > :27:02.Malaysia only make him more determined. Having seen this, are
:27:02. > :27:05.you now glad that you didn't go into business with these sorts of
:27:05. > :27:14.people? 100%, because we're sold as the tyre recycling industry, sold
:27:14. > :27:17.the idea that these tyres are going to be dealt with responsibly. So
:27:17. > :27:26.yeah, there isum, yeah. It certainly enforces our case to
:27:26. > :27:29.keeping it all here in the UK. hoping the Government will clamp
:27:29. > :27:35.down on all exports, forcing the tyre industry to spend more on
:27:35. > :27:37.recycling in Britain. Once the money comes back into the tyre
:27:37. > :27:40.collection industry, there'll be reinvestment into the tyre
:27:40. > :27:44.recycling industry, which will ensure that our tyres here in the
:27:44. > :27:54.UK are dealt with in the UK and we are getting some real value back
:27:54. > :27:57.The Government is relying on the market sorting out this problem.
:27:57. > :28:07.But with British jobs at risk, while vast amounts of our waste are
:28:07. > :28:12.
:28:12. > :28:15.shipped abroad, can the market On Thursday, a Panorama special
:28:15. > :28:21.tests the science behind the advertising claims of some of