Fly-tipping: Causes, Incentives and Solutions - Keep Britain Tidy

Fly-tipping: Causes, Incentives and Solutions
There were a number of examples where interviewees appeared to have been
trying to do the right thing, but were nevertheless prosecuted and fined by the
local authority.
In one instance an individual was charged with fly-tipping because the council
believed he had left bulky waste outside his property. In fact the individual had
employed a legitimate waste disposal company to remove it but they had
failed to do so as agreed. This individual was prosecuted but acquitted by the
judge who told the council that the case should have never gone to court.
However, he still got a conditional discharge, which meant his name was put
on record for 12 months. The individual also had to pay court costs of £800 as
the judge said he had to get costs from someone. He also had to take time off
work to attend four court appearances during his prosecution. The individual
said his prosecution was just prior to a blitz on fly-tipping by the council – he
believes this is part of the reason why his case went to prosecution in the first
place. He believes the case could have been easily handled out of court which
would have been less time consuming and less expensive.
In another case an individual and his friend were both prosecuted for putting
rubbish bags outside someone else’s house (on the evening before collection
day). They put one bag in the rubbish bin – which already had some rubbish
in it - and two beside the bin. The individuals couldn’t put it outside their own
residence because of the councils ‘no side waste’ policy. They didn’t think
they were doing anything wrong as they believed the waste was going to be
picked up on the following day (collection day). The council then prosecuted
the individuals and they received a fine of £175 each. The interviewee says
they felt criminalised by the process. He felt that a £50 fine and an apology to
the person whose house they put the rubbish outside would have been more
appropriate.
In this final example, an individual who was working on his own house took
some brickwork to the tip in a trailer to dump as domestic waste. As the tip
workers knew him as a trader, however, they said he had to pay. When the
individual said it was waste from his own house, the tip workers said they
needed someone from the council to verify this. The council were unable to
send anyone to make the check for at least one week, which left the individual
with a trailer full of bricks. As the trailer was rented, he couldn’t afford to keep
it for longer than a week. After making every effort to get the council and even
the police to help, he decided to dump the bricks on the steps of Town Hall in
protest. He neatly stacked the bricks and contacted the local paper. He was
charged and prosecuted for fly-tipping. The individual believed he had done
everything possible to get rid of the waste legally.
Thinking strategically
Policing and enforcement was generally thought not to be the way forward in
controlling fly-tipping. Rather, a more strategic approach should be taken that
deals with some cross-cutting issues. For example, while increasing prices at
tip sites might reduce usage and therefore reflect well on the council’s use of
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