Keep Britain Tidy reacts to 6% rise in fly-tipping incidents

60% of fly-tips involved household waste, with 688,000 incidents involving household waste according to figures released by Defra. 

This represents an increase of 5% from 654,000 incidents the previous period. 

The figures also show the most common place for fly-tipping to occur was on highways (pavements and roads), 427,000 reports accounting for 37% of total incidents. 

Responding to the new statistics, Keep Britain Tidy’s Chief Executive Allison Ogden-Newton OBE said: “These statistics are a tragedy. Fly-tipping is costing each and every one of us; the increasing sums needed to clean up the mess that’s wrecking both the environment and communities where it significantly contributes to people feeling ‘left behind’. 

“This 6% increase in incidents dealt with by local authorities – taking the total to a whopping 1.15 million– is frightening and shameful.  

“We need leadership from government as a matter of urgency. We must tackle the crisis in our broken waste system with national product take-back schemes, a complete reform of the waste carrier license scheme and much tougher sanctions on those criminals who are coming to people’s doors, profiting from ignorance and dumping waste wherever they fancy. 

“We must help the public do the right thing with stuff they no longer want or need and address the reality of those who wake up every day to the horrors of fly-tipping on their doorstep.” 

In 2023/24, 47,000 incidents were of ‘tipper lorry load’ size or larger, which is an increase of 11% from 42,000 in 2022/23.  

For these large fly-tipping incidents, the cost of clearance to local authorities in England in 2023/24 was £13.1 million. 

Local authorities carried out 528,000 enforcement actions in 2023/24, which was a slight decrease from the 530,000 in 2022/23. 

Keep Britain Tidy has designed several campaigns and interventions to combat fly-tipping.

Over the past few years, we have conducted extensive research into why people fly-tip – starting with householders and brought this insight together into our recent publication; Beyond the Tipping Point: Insights to Tackle Householder Fly-Tipping.

In Newham, London, our Better Streets ‘crime scene investigation’ pilot resulted in an average 64% reduction in fly-tipping incidents, with over half of residents reporting they had noticed the intervention.

Campaign #CrimeNotToCare has been designed to help local authority partners educate their residents about their responsibilities to dispose of their own waste and help them avoid a fine or worse. 

*originally published 26/02/2025*