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The Environment Agency is using sophisticated detection technology to thwart illegal waste-dumping criminals.

There are believed to around 800 illegal sites in operation, which - along with organised flytipping activity - cost businesses and taxpayers millions of pounds every year to clean up.

The specialists on the environment crime team are now using SmartWater tracking to trace any fly-tipped waste along with various other CSI-style techniques.

Environment Agency chief executive, Dr Paul Leinster, said the agency will confiscate assets that waste criminals have gained from crime. He said: "By dumping waste illegally, waste criminals avoid landfill charges and undercut legitimate waste businesses. But more importantly they put the environment and human health at risk. We are making sure that waste criminals are caught, prosecuted and made to pay for the clean up of the land they have polluted."