Helping clear litter from our communities
Fly-tipping is the ‘illegal deposit of any waste onto land or a highway that has no licence to accept it.’ Illegal dumps of waste can vary in scale and the type of waste involved.
Tipping a mattress, electrical items or a bin bag full of rubbish in the street causes a local nuisance, and tipping household items and small-scale building or garden waste in open spaces reduces their amenity value to the community.
At the other end of the scale there is a growing trend for large-scale fly-tipping which involves several truckloads of construction and demolition waste being tipped on a range of different types of land.
The absence of any formal definition of illegal waste disposal is deliberate. According to guidelines produced by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra): “The definition of fly-tipping is a wide one. This is because there is a general recognition by all, including Government ministers that fly-tipping, whether it is a dumped mattress or a lorry load of construction and demolition waste can be linked to anti-social behaviour, fear of crime and the liveability of an area.”
Fly-tipping is a growing problem that costs local authorities alone almost £74m a year to clear up (Flycapture data 2008). At its worst, fly-tipping can lead to serious pollution of the environment and harm to human health if hazardous waste is involved. Fly-tipping can also undermine legitimate waste management business activities.
What causes fly-tipping?
There are several reasons why fly-tipping occurs, and they all need to be considered when tackling this issue.
Ignorance leads to a large amount of illegal dumping. Householders and small businesses pass on their waste to companies offering waste disposal services assuming they are legitimate businesses and will rarely check for any official documentation. This issue is compounded by the fact that the illegal waste companies are often significantly cheaper than their legitimate counterparts.
For more information about fly-tipping view our Knowledge Bank