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A pair of individuals have been taken into custody as part of an inquiry into the tipping of many thousands of tons of waste in a open field in Oxfordshire, England.

Officials indicated that a 69-year-old was detained at a property in Hampshire's Andover, while a 54-year-old was detained in the town of Slough in connection with the huge pile of garbage tipped near the area of Kidlington.

These apprehensions follow a recent revelation which exposed the existence of in excess of 500 illegal sites in England, featuring at least 11 so-called "super sites" bigger than 20,000 tons.

A spokeswoman for the environmental body said that the apprehensions were for environment-related and financial violations and constituted a "key step" in active investigations. The two individuals have been released on conditional release.

Size of the Issue

The dump in the Kidlington area, situated between the Cherwell River and the A34, is believed to house approximately 21,000 metric tons of rubbish in a mound which is up to 150m (490ft) lengthwise and 6m (20ft) tall.

This pile of garbage is made up of what looks to be processed residential refuse, chopped up plastics, Styrofoam, tyres and other everyday items.

It constitutes just one of 517 unlawful tips across England, at minimum 11 of which hold in excess of 20,000 metric tons of waste. Such sites feature a 280,000-tonne area in the county of Cheshire, two 50,000-tonne sites in Lancashire and Cornwall and a 36,000-tonne site in Kent.

The overall number of such larger sites is expected to be greater, as the environmental authority has previously indicated it does not hold information on volume for all unauthorized tip.

The majority such locations are in agricultural locations, frequently concealed, and on land that is zoned as arable ground.

Organised Activity

Police report numerous are operated by organised crime gangs, who are generating profit by charging far less than legitimate firms to take and bury waste.

Firms have to incur gate fees to use licensed disposal sites, depending on the quantity and type of material they are trying to discard, and landfill tax is also levied at just over £126 per ton.

Community Anger

Preparation operations to clear the affected site started earlier this month due to worries over the potential of fire and the effect that would have on the nearby A-road.

A private waste clearance company has been awarded the job to handle the location over the coming 12 months at a price of £9.6m.

An enforcement manager for the country's environment division said that the authority would be seeking to recover the clean-up costs under asset recovery laws from any party ultimately prosecuted at the conclusion of its ongoing case.

She added that these detentions would help "drive the investigation forward" and enable authorities to "investigate more lines of inquiry to understand precisely what happened and who was implicated".

"The unlawful tip at the site was an shocking and calculated affront on our ecology and officials share the community's frustration at this horrific crime," she remarked.

A government representative praised the actions, stating: "This unlawful deposit of rubbish at the site is disgraceful and has led to considerable damage to the environment and distress to the local residents.

"The administration is pledged to eradicating this type of criminality across the nation, by boosting resources to address waste crime, hiring more personnel and implementing stricter checks and fines for those who flout the law."

The detentions were executed on a recent Thursday by officers from a specialist 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 subject to further inquiries.