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

Fly-tipping: Causes, Incentives and Solutions
may mean that there is less storage available to householders for their waste
so they have a greater need to dispose of it more regularly. This can lead to
more black bags appearing on the street before the timed collection, and more
side waste.
Even in these circumstances, however, there are examples of people trying to
do the right thing. For example, waste is often dumped outside the gates of
civic amenity sites, and householders will dump their side waste next to their
neighbours waste, in the expectation that the waste will be easily collected.
Some even think that this is what you are supposed to do in these
circumstances.
Although these problems are defined in Flycapture terms as fly-tipping, local
authorities need to make the distinction between low-level fly-tipping and
waste crime. Indeed, in some cases these problems may be better conceived
of as the consequence of inadequate waste collection arrangements that do
not quite meet the needs of residents.
Serial and opportunistic offenders
In general crime control work it is well recognised that there are two kinds of
offender:
• opportunistic offenders, who take advantage of an opportunity to make
some money or show off or whatever. These offenders are generally less
motivated to break the law and therefore easily deterred. There are a lot of
them.
• persistent and prolific offenders, who account for a great deal of crime.
There are not many of them, but they are highly motivated and therefore
less easily deterred.
The data examined here on convicted offenders suggests that the same two
types of fly-tipper exist. 39% of offenders had only been convicted once while
6% of offenders accounted for 22% of all offences. The one-off offenders
seem to be generally more petty and opportunistic offenders, having
convictions for other offences. The prolific fly-tippers appear to be specialists.
This is important information. It means that two kinds of response are required
for each group of offender. Measures that make it harder or less rewarding to
fly-tip are more likely to deter the opportunistic group. The more committed
group are the ones where enforcement resources need to be focused.
Strategic thinking
One of the big challenges in organising a strategic response to fly-tipping
locally is the poor capacity by local authorities for problem oriented work and
strategic thinking aimed at prevention. Enforcement dominates thinking, even
when it is not seen as terribly effective and penetrates the fly-tipping
community very little.
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