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Two individuals have been taken into custody as a component of an inquiry into the dumping of many thousands of metric tons of refuse in a field in Oxfordshire.

Officials indicated that a man in his late sixties was arrested at a residence in Hampshire's Andover, while a 54-year-old was taken into custody in Slough, Berkshire in relation with the enormous mound of waste tipped near Kidlington, Oxfordshire.

These detentions occur a week after a recent report which exposed the operation of over 500 unauthorized dumps in the country of England, featuring at least 11 so-called "super sites" greater than 20,000 tons.

A official for the regulatory body said that the detentions were for ecological and proceeds of crime crimes and represented a "vital step" in ongoing inquiries. The apprehended men have been released on conditional release.

Scale of the Situation

The tipping ground in near Kidlington, positioned between the river Cherwell and the A34 highway, is estimated to house around 21,000 metric tons of rubbish in a mound which is up to 150m (490ft) long and 6m (20ft) high.

This mound of garbage is composed of what appears to be sorted residential rubbish, shredded plastic materials, Styrofoam, tires and other household items.

It constitutes just a single of 517 unauthorized sites across England, at least 11 of which contain in excess of 20,000 metric tons of rubbish. They include a 280,000-tonne location in Cheshire, two 50,000-tonne locations in Lancashire and Cornwall and a 36,000-tonne tip in Kent.

The total figure of such larger locations is likely to be higher, as the environment body has in the past indicated it does not hold data on volume for each illegal tip.

A large proportion of such locations are in rural settings, frequently hidden, and on land that is intended to be farm property.

Organized Operations

Law enforcement state many are managed by organised crime gangs, who are earning cash by asking for far less than legitimate firms to accept and landfill garbage.

Businesses have to pay site fees to use lawful landfill sites, depending on the volume and type of material they are trying to discard, and a waste tax is also applied at just over £126 per tonne.

Community Outrage

Initial work to remove the Kidlington area location began in recent weeks amid concerns over the risk of fire and the impact that would have on the adjacent A-road.

A commercial waste clearance company has been granted the task to remediate the site over the following 12 months at a cost of £9.6m.

An enforcement manager for the national environment unit stated that the authority would be seeking to recoup the clearance costs under asset recovery legislation from anyone found guilty at the end of its active case.

She further stated that this week's detentions would help "drive the inquiry forward" and enable the agency to "pursue more leads to understand precisely what happened and who was a party to it".

"This unauthorized dump at this location was an atrocious and deliberate attack on our natural surroundings and the authorities empathize with the public's outrage at this egregious offence," she said.

A cabinet official supported the arrests, commenting: "This unauthorized deposit of waste at the site is appalling and has led to substantial damage to the ecology and anguish to the nearby residents.

"Our authorities is pledged to eliminating this type of illegal activity in the country, by increasing resources to tackle illegal dumping, recruiting more officers and introducing stricter controls and penalties for those who flout the law."

The arrests were carried out on a recent Thursday by officers from a regional serious crime unit and come after an prior arrest of a 39-year-old from the Guildford region in last November. He was let go awaiting additional enquiries.