One of the main misunderstandings in environmental crime is the lack of consistency in the definition and classification of environmental crime. The primary problem is differing perspectives as to what constitutes as environmental crime, embedded in moral, philosophical and legalistic interpretations of harm and in what circumstances does this harm becomes a crime (White, 2008). Many criminologists have put forth perspectives which explain the reasons why individuals and corporations engage in activities that cause environmental harms. These perspectives can be linked to the original environmental or green criminology perspectives. Pollution and dumping has become an increasingly costly problem for the environment. As a results, there has been a rise in criminology literature that analyses environmental harms as crimes (Crofts, Morris, Wells & Powell, 2010).

Pollution entail the emission, leakage or spillage of a prescribed substance into the air, water or soil (Brickenll, 2010). It was the first environmentally damaging practice to capture the attention of the public and also concern regulatory attention. Pollutants recognised include pesticides, chemicals and gases. Whilst some of these emissions are banned and illegal, some are permitted, but only within specified levels. Pollution is thus illegal when there is a release of a prohibited substance, the emission or leakage of substance in excess of an established limit, or expulsion into areas such as vast bodies of water (Bricknell, 2010). Illegal waste disposal includes the transportation and dumping of waste into landfills or other areas. Waste includes everything from hazardous substances to electronic waste, more commonly known as e-waste. Australia is one of the highest producers of waste per capita in the world (ABS, 2010).

In Australia, there was approximately 2080 kilograms of waste generated per person in 2006-07. New South Wales was the state most liable for the largest proportion of the country’s waste - comprising of 37 percent. Of the 2080 kilograms of waste generated in Australia, 38 percent came from the construction and demolition sector. Growth in the amount of waste generated per person has been driven by a number of economic and demographic factors. Australia’s large growing economic sector is contributing immensely to the large quantities of waste. As a result, Australia has become heavily reliant on landfills for waste management. The volume of waste deposited into landfill increased greatly from 19 million tonnes in 2001 to 21.3 million tonnes in 2007 (ABS, 2010). The primary environmental concerns associated with landfills are emissions of

greenhouse gases and the possible long-term pollution of the environment through the waste disposed in these landfills that do not decompose. The increase in waste, the costs of legal dumping and the corporatisation of waste administration has lead to the increase of illegal waste disposal.

In addition, Australia is one of the highest users of new technology in the world. Thus, e-waste is one of the fastest growing types of waste. According to Hyper Consulting and Pricewaterhouse Coopers (2009), in 2007-08, 21.7 million new televisions and computer produces were sold in Australia. 16.8 million units were out of use by the end of that year and of these, 88 percent ended up in landfills. Large developed companies are exporting huge quantities of e-waste to developing nations that do not have the infrastructure to dispose of it safely and this has thus gained great attention in recent years (Pellow, 2007). It is estimated that e-waste constitutes five percent of municipal solid waste and is expected to continuously rise. E-waste does not breakdown and stockpiling in landfill runs the great risk of toxic leaching into surrounding soils and in the case of an unlined landfill, possibly also into ground water. A steady build up of toxics has potential to cause significant environmental harm. However, according to the Australian Institute of Criminology, despite Australia being one of the most highly regulated areas of environmental control in Australia, there is no actual formal analysis on the activities of waste disposal and illegal polluting (Bricknell 2010). The lack of available statistics regarding illegal dumping can be explained by the tendency to regard the problem as non criminal.

Environmental criminology requires more than simply talking about the environment and what needs to be done to protect it. It requires investigating trends and issues as well as asking questions. On one hand, what happens in our natural environment effects us personally, even if they are not immediate consequences and thus matters regarding environmental harm and those that commit it raise questions of social structures (White, 2008). Quinney (1970) publicised the idea that societal power relations reflects social construction. When viewing which part of society commits the most crime we immediately think of the powerless over the powerful. However, law-making processes are constructed in such a way that it represents the diverse interests of both the powerful and powerless (Lynch & Stretsky, 2003). The law is also capable of controlling and transforming numerous actions and activities that pose a threat to health and the well being of the population. While the law does primarily represent the interest of the powerful, there are mechanisms imbedded

into laws that also control their behaviour (Crofts et al., 2010). The structure of the law and how it is designed to control the behaviour of the powerful is seen through environmental laws in regards to pollution and dumping.

Environmental crime is a social construction of political processes influenced through the efforts of moral crusaders and moral entrepreneurs to expand the meaning of what should be viewed as a crime. This effects the way the general public view the law, as they see it as a construct of the powerful. It is thus clear that in cases such as illegal dumping, the primary incentive for committing environmental crime is personal gain. Lynch and Stretsky (2003) distinguish this through an environmental justice perspective and a corporate perspective. From an environmental justice perspective, an environmental crime, is an act that has identifiable environmental damage caused from human action. However, these actions may or may not violate existing environmental rules or regulations. Some of these actions are sanctioned by criminal laws, whilst others only amount to administrative or civil violations. Illegal polluting and waste disposal coincide with the traditional definition of environmental crime. Social construction plays a major role in the way people define crime. Thus, it is necessary to understand why certain behaviours become the focus of laws. An example is how laws are designed to protect everyone from the impacts of environmental harms but often fail to be enforced in lower minority areas. As a result, the environmental justice perspective focuses on how overlapping forms of class, race, social and gender inequalities effect the way environmental laws are socially constructed.

It is clear that through this perspective, that enforcement processes favour the powerful in regards to the construction and application of law (Lynch & Stretsky, 2003). In addition, many green crimes results from structures and hierarchies that exclude many minority groups. An example of this is illegal dumping in underdeveloped regions which can result in a depletion of natural resources and effect the health standards. Dumping in landfills can contaminate soil, and in turn contaminate drinking water and thus also effect health standards of the society in these developing nations. This perspective focuses its attention on acts that should be criminal, even if it is not defined as illegal under law. Large corporations are still allowed, to an extent, to pollute and dump even though it causes major repercussions on the environment in the long run.

According to Situ and Emmons (2000), from a corporate view green crimes are acts applied that violate the law and are subsequently subject to criminal prosecution and sanctions. This definition presented is very limiting in regards to what can be considered as a crime seeing. Since environmental harms are only perceived as involving an illegal act and not creating any social harm, targeting minority communities as waste sites may be seen as standard business practices. Subsequently, form this perspective, what is viewed as an environmental crime is closely linked to economical outcomes. Corporate activities are justified as good business practices when the economic benefits of environmental harm outweigh the civil liabilities. A cost-benefit system is also a major aspect of this perspective (Higley & Pedigo, 1996). Corporations tend to argue that standards of living cannot be improved or sustained without some threat posed to the people and the environment when it comes to justifying environmental damage. Thus from this standpoint, economic benefits of environmental damage outweigh its costs. These perspectives presented outline the effect that large corporations have on minority populations. The environmental justice perspective view environmental harms caused by humans whilst a corporate perspective views environmental harm as an illegal act, and not a social concern. One thing these two perspectives do have in common is that they are done out of the interests of large corporations, with benefits out-weighing the costs.

From a cost effective spectrum, an analysis of costs associated with waste disposal indicates that illegal dumping is an economically rational choice. The economic costs of removing waste is costly. Therefore, illegal dumping removes the price tag attached. Corporations that accumulate large quantities on a regular basis are usually subject to high disposal costs and thus seek alternatives. Given this, the most economically rational decision to dispose of waste is to do so illegally, especially if offenders are unlikely to be caught. If they are caught they only receive a small fine compared to the costs of disposing waste legally (Crofts et al., 2010). Environmental design also has a major impact on illegal dumping. Newman (1976) concluded, whilst undertaking research about environmental crimes in New York, that areas most susceptible to illegal acts such as dumping all shared similar characteristics. These included unassigned and unprotected open spaces that were uncared for and thus provided opportunities for residents as well as outsiders to engage in illegitimate activities. Lack of ownership and control of public spaces as well as lack of opportunities for natural surveillance were also important reasons that contributes to illegal dumping (Crofts et al., 2010).

From the traditional criminological theory, environmental crime can be associated with the Libertarian approach. This approach is based upon the moral philosophy of egoism where the only constraint on behaviour is the duty to not initiate force over others. (White, 2008). The concept of a competitive market is a major driving force in this theory. Thus this is interlinked with with the act of environmental crime seeing as it is time for economic gain and purposes. Here, crime is defined through the terms of infringing private property thus the states role is restricted in this sense. Victimless crimes are considered in need of decriminalistaion, seeing as ‘anything goes’ in this perspective. People should have complete liberty to do as they will, as long as they do not infringe illegally upon the rights of others. This is seen through dumping in minority areas. Although it does cause harm upon others it is still allowed through the use of permits (Bricknell, 2010). From this view of rational choice, an increase in punishment can be used as a deterrence from committing additional crimes and also reducing any future occurrences. This can be done through an increase in quota for dumping or heftier fines. Thus, from this perspective, prevention strategies are primarily used at reducing crime rather than at the structural reasons for offending behaviour or the criminalisation process.

The environmental or green criminology theory is a challenge to the traditional criminological orthodoxies. This perspective refers to the study of environmental harm, environmental laws and environmental regulations by criminologists (White, 2008). A basic premise of environmental criminology is to highlight what the damaging and destructive behaviour of environmental activity such as illegal dumping, has on the general public as well as the environment. One approach to conceptualising environmental harm is through the conventional criminology in green criminology (White, 2010). These are legal conceptions of crime informed by laws, rules and interactional conventions. The focal concern here against environmental harm is legality and the division of activities into categories of legal and illegal. This approach fits neatly with Lynch and Stretsky’s (2003) corporate perspective on green crime as it only considers an environmental harm to be a crime only if the law says it is.

Moreover, transnational environmental harm effects the whole world, however some parts have greater consequences than others. The transformation of nature via the imposition of capitalistic constructions of what is good and productive for the global political economy has dire consequences for the global environment. Environmental harm is thus viewed as intrinsically transnational. A globalisation approach implies that the effects of environmental harm are universal. When this is interconnected with a comparative criminological analysis disparity between minority nations are evident. Some countries and regions are more liable to pollution and illegal waste dumping than others. Like the environmental justice perspective presented by Lynch and Stretsky (2003), there are specific regions and minority groups who receive more environmental harm than others. Studies have identified disparities involving environmental hazards, that affect ethnic minority groups and indigenous people. Therefore, there are patterns of differential victimisation that are present in cases like illegal toxic waste dumps (Chunn, Boyd & Menzies, 2002). Through the transnational environmental harm approach, investigating this type of crime is relevant in regards to each and every country on the planet. The combined effects of human transformations of nature are having significant repercussions on the environment. This has resulted from the growing competition and demand for global resources. The world’s population has reached a stage where the amount of resources needed to sustain it exceeds what is available. Global inequality in regards to environmental harm is unlikely to change as presented in the environmental justice perspective, as the needs of the powerful are likely to outweigh the powerless (Lynch & Stretsky, 2003).

It is evident that within recent years, environmental crime has emerged as a key agenda for policy makers. One of the main environmental harms that affect both the environment and individuals is dumping. Several criminologists have tried to explain this concept and apply it across all other environmental crimes. From these perspectives, it is evident that the main factor that contributes to illegal dumping is economical benefits. The perspectives presented by criminologists are correlated with the environmental or green criminological perspectives. Thus, dumping can be explained through a traditional libertarian approach and environmental perspective which is a challenge to criminological orthodoxies.