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Two men have been detained as a component of an investigation into the tipping of many thousands of tonnes of waste in a rural field in Oxfordshire.

Authorities stated that a 69-year-old was apprehended at a residence in the town of Andover, while a 54-year-old was taken into custody in the town of Slough in connection with the huge pile of garbage dumped near the area of Kidlington.

These apprehensions come after a prior report which exposed the existence of in excess of 500 unlawful sites in England, including at minimum 11 so-called "large-scale sites" larger than 20,000 tons.

A spokeswoman for the environmental agency commented that the detentions were for environmental and money laundering violations and were a "crucial step" in continuing investigations. The apprehended men have been let go on pre-trial release.

Scale of the Situation

The dump in the Kidlington area, situated between the river Cherwell and the A34 highway, is thought to hold around 21,000 metric tons of rubbish in a mound which is up to 150m (490ft) long and 6m (20ft) in height.

This pile of rubbish is consists of what appears to be processed domestic rubbish, chopped up plastics, Styrofoam, automobile tires and assorted domestic articles.

It represents just a single of 517 unauthorized tips in England, at least 11 of which contain over 20,000 tons of waste. They include a 280,000-tonne location in the county of Cheshire, two 50,000-tonne sites in Lancashire and Cornwall county and a 36,000-tonne dump in Kent.

The overall amount of such major dumps is likely to be greater, as the environment authority has in the past indicated it does not possess data on volume for each unauthorized site.

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

Criminal Operations

Authorities state many are managed by criminal organizations, who are making cash by charging much less than lawful companies to take and landfill rubbish.

Companies have to be liable for disposal fees to use licensed landfill sites, depending on the amount and type of refuse they are trying to dispose of, and landfill tax is also charged at just over £126 per metric ton.

Community Outrage

Initial work to clean up the affected location started earlier this month following concerns over the potential of blaze and the impact that would have on the close-by A-road.

A private clean-up firm has been granted the task to deal with the area over the following 12 months at a cost of £9.6m.

An enforcement manager for the country's environmental crime unit said that the body would be looking to recover the clearance expenses under asset recovery laws from any party successfully prosecuted at the termination of its active case.

She added that the recent apprehensions would help "drive the inquiry forward" and permit officials to "follow more avenues to determine precisely what occurred and who was a party to it".

"This illegal dump at Kidlington was an shocking and calculated attack on our environment and we empathize with the public's outrage at this horrific act," she remarked.

A senior minister praised the actions, stating: "This illegal dumping of rubbish at this location is disgraceful and has resulted in considerable harm to the ecology and anguish to the nearby residents.

"Our administration is pledged to stamping out this kind of crime across the country, by augmenting resources to address waste crime, hiring more officers and introducing more severe controls and penalties for those who flout the law."

The apprehensions were executed on the specified day by officers from a dedicated serious crime team and are in addition to an previous apprehension of a man in his thirties from the Guildford area area in last November. He was released awaiting additional enquiries.