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A pair of individuals have been taken into custody as part of an inquiry into the illegal deposit of thousands of tons of refuse in a field in the county of Oxfordshire.

Officials reported that a 69-year-old was detained at a dwelling in the town of Andover, while a 54-year-old was taken into custody in Slough, Berkshire in connection with the huge pile of garbage dumped near Kidlington.

These apprehensions follow a previous revelation which uncovered the operation of over 500 unlawful dumps in England, featuring at a minimum of 11 so-called "super sites" bigger than 20,000 tonnes.

A official for the environmental body commented that the apprehensions were for environmental and financial crimes and represented a "key step" in continuing inquiries. The apprehended men have been set free on conditional release.

Scale of the Situation

The tipping ground in near Kidlington, situated between the River Cherwell and the A34, is estimated to house around 21,000 tonnes of rubbish in a pile which is up to 150m (490ft) long and 6m (20ft) in height.

This mound of waste is consists of what seems to be sorted domestic rubbish, fragmented plastic items, polystyrene, automobile tires and assorted domestic objects.

It represents just a single of 517 illegal sites throughout England, at a minimum of 11 of which contain over 20,000 tonnes of garbage. They feature a 280,000-tonne location in the county of Cheshire, two 50,000-tonne areas in Lancashire and Cornwall and a 36,000-tonne dump in Kent.

The overall figure of such bigger sites is probably to be greater, as the environment body has previously acknowledged it does not possess records on volume for all unlawful dump.

The majority these sites are in rural settings, frequently hidden, and on land that should be arable land.

Organised Operations

Police report many are managed by criminal organizations, who are making cash by demanding much less than legitimate firms to take and landfill garbage.

Businesses have to be liable for disposal fees to use legitimate waste facilities, depending on the amount and type of refuse they are trying to discard, and a waste tax is also applied at just over £126 per ton.

Local Anger

Initial efforts to remove the Kidlington area site began earlier this month due to concerns over the potential of blaze and the impact that would have on the nearby major road.

A private waste clearance company has been granted the contract to remediate the location over the next 12 months at a price of £9.6m.

An investigations manager for the government environmental crime division said that the authority would be aiming to claim back the clearance costs under asset recovery acts from any individual successfully convicted at the conclusion of its active inquiry.

She added that these detentions would help "move the investigation forward" and allow the agency to "pursue more lines of inquiry to determine exactly what transpired and who was a party to it".

"The illegal site at Kidlington was an atrocious and deliberate assault on our ecology and we understand the public's anger at this horrific offence," she remarked.

A cabinet official praised the arrests, stating: "This unlawful dumping of rubbish at Kidlington is appalling and has caused considerable harm to the natural world and distress to the nearby community.

"The administration is committed to eradicating this kind of illegal activity across the nation, by boosting financing to tackle environmental crime, hiring more officers and introducing tougher measures and penalties for those who violate the rules."

The detentions were executed on the specified day by agents from a dedicated crime team and follow an earlier apprehension of a man in his thirties from the Guildford region in the autumn. He was released subject to additional enquiries.