Fly tipping

My local club spent thousands clearing and doing up a water last summer and the feedback by and large was positive from members.

Now the fly-tippers have returned and we're all wondering how we can combat them.

Any ideas..?

Chris I was at an AGM last night , similar problems.The only real answer is serious money toward either top knotch gates, fences etc or some sort of cctv.Some were caught here in the Colne Valley trying to dump on Savays car park.I beleive summary justice prevailed.I can only assume the problem will get worse due to the EEC regs being tightened up thereby Local authorities are charging more and more to accept waste.The solution the club here have agreed on is a rota to observe and record details of vehicles etc.There are some willing to do it.

Hi Chris,

I remember seeing a programme on TV about fly-tipping.

I cannot remember all the details but I think that either the local council or Environmental Health people placed a spy camera at the site and the evidence gained was used to prosecute the offenders.

Perhaps just putting a sign up to this effect might act as a deterrent.

if your local council is anything like mine, you can't dump anything at 'the dump' if your vehicle is taller than 5'9", you won't get through the barrier. This leaves the surrounding green areas littered with old beds, sofas, etc.

Whilst I agree that there is no excuse, the council aren't persuading people to be tidy if they're gonna charge you a tenner just to dump a mattress for you, or put height restictions in-at the local dump.(designed to keep out commercial vehicles)

Lie in wait and then petrol bomb their vans.

I have no time at all for these people.

We have a major prob on our local RiverCray.

Keep records of when this happens and what is dumped.
If you can gather intelgance with night vision cctv this will help. Your local council Environmental health may have such equipment or the EA. I have been offerd the use of such equipment by Thames 21. If there is a similar organisation in your area check things out with them.

However, it will cost if you take out a prosecution, suggest also the ACA.

The EA are supposed to be on the case but all they seem to do is send out press releases now and then threatening a craackdown and probably 10 people a year across the whole country get taken to court.

Get the local council's to stop charging 23 notes to take vans of household waste in. its a discrace..

Yes, tie a large lump of rock around the necks of people who do this and send them into the deepest hole on the Trent at Gainsborough.

Big barbel love human flesh I beleive!!

Whenever a new lot of rubbish is illegally tipped, get on the phone to the council and badger them continuously to get it removed. If they get frequent enough complaints as the incidents occur they might just take preventative action.

We've got a special clean-up team here but they don't usually deal with waste tipped on private land and there's the rub. If it's on the public highway (ie roadside verges etc...), it's either the county or district council's responsibility. If it's by a river it can be the EA's responsibility but isn't always.

One of the first probs i came across was that one side of the path is private, down to the land owner.

The path/track is a public highway, even though it isnt tarmaced, but mud, gravel and dog crap. Any fly tipping or litter is too expensive to remove and any prosecutions would only recover a small amount of cash.A lot less than the cost of removal and compensation/fines.

the Debri in the river isnt always down to the EA to remove but the river/stretch owner and again would cost the EA far more to remove.
It can be delt with by constant nagging in a constuctive way.

I constantley kept on at the council and EA.
They did get the private land owner to clean up his area of land. This included building site and home improvement debri and over 20 vehicals. Also thames water had acess to a pumpping station , this acess also entered the private land and a new security gate and fence was erected.

The council also removed some vehicals and Fly tipped Debri from the river bank and placed earth mounds across the entrance to the track.

An attempt was made to remove marginal debri, along with reeds and lillies???
That was then left on the bank, only for morons to chuck bikes, oil drums, crates etc back in.

Thames 21, local residents and Air Scouts supported by the coucils supply of a skip removed several tons of litter and debri.

This included beds, toys, doors, fridges and freezers, washing machienes, gates, oil drums, wheel barrows and so on.

The skip was removed the same day. This was a high profile exercise and a lot of locals watched us at work, even months later the area we cleared is still very clean apart from the odd bit of litter and milk crate.

Although the authorities have a duty to maintain an area, it is cheeper for them to encougrage voluntary groups.

Bexley council have a green flag award for their parks and open spaces and environment awards for conservation groups who maintain these areas, however the better off parts tend to be better maintained than the less well off areas within our local borough.
Thats why the Adopt-a-River program is so crucial to the north of bexley and the River Cray.