http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03gm10d
“Cleaning up Britain's
rubbish costs us more than a billion pounds a year. Hardly surprising, given we
drop five times more litter today than we did in the Sixties - much of it as a
direct result of our fondness for fast food, soft drinks and sweets. Yet while
we seem unwilling to pick up after ourselves - or our pets - other people's
discarded rubbish still gets many hot under the collar”
Last night BBC Panorama aired a programme about the
increasing amount of rubbish both on our streets and in open spaces dumped by
the public. Over the past few months I
have been alerted to the growing problem of fly-tipping in urban areas. The presumption
is that, “the council will remove it”.
Unfortunately this is not the case as farmers have found out over the
years. If the rubbish is dumped in
private alley ways it becomes the responsibility of the home owners. I have raised the issue with various
departments and have spoken out at meetings I have attended:
1. Chamber of Commerce
– to alert their small business members that the Council will not remove
rubbish dumped on private land unless there is a threat to public health.
2. Community Partnership
meeting – is it a fire hazard as well as antisocial behaviour.
The big question is who is responsible:
1. The Public
2. The Council
3. The Producers of packaging
In my view it should be a collective responsibility to
ensure our environment stays clean. Fast
food outlets and retailers should have a duty of care to provided bins, offer
incentives and litter pickers. Councils should ensure that the public have
bins, are educated about the cost and impact of their behaviour and of course
the general public including small businesses and their responsibilities.
Bridlington Town Council is doing its bit by helping to fund
bins and stencilling paths with the help of the Community Payback Scheme.
Unfortunately the root of the problem is the mind set of those
that just don’t care. The Keep Britain
Tidy campaign has seen their funding reduced so the message has been
diluted. Councils charge at their tips
for commercial waste leading to fly tipping as business margins are reduced. Many schools try to educate children on
social responsibility but the message is not always reinforced at home.
Councils have become more cost conscious and have also seen their budgets
reduced.
OK so should we all get angry and confront and report litter
louts, should parking enforcement officers have a dual role, should councils
not charge for commercial waste at tips, should we have more bins, should fast
food outlets/supermarkets have a local rubbish levy?
Probably a combination of all the above but it may be too
little too late.
Some Research & Guidance
Reporting Fly tipping
The Law
Legislation on fly-tipping
There is no specific definition of fly-tipping other than that set out
in section 33 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, which says it is an
offence to treat, keep or dispose of controlled waste without a waste
management licence or in a manner likely to cause pollution of the environment
or harm to human health.
The absence of any formal definition of illegal waste disposal is
deliberate. According to guidelines produced by 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.”
Most of the legislation regulating waste is covered by four main Acts:
The Control of Pollution (Amendment) Act 1989, The Environment Protection Act
1990, The Town and Country Planning Act 1991 and The Clean Neighbourhoods and
Environment Act 2005 (the 2005 Act). The 2005 Act was specifically intended to
make it easier to deal with environmental crimes. Part 5 of the Act covers
waste and gives local authorities, the police and the Environment Agency
greater powers when dealing with waste crime.
The 2005 Act raised the penalties on conviction for fly-tipping crimes,
bringing the fly-tipping of all types of waste in line with hazardous waste and
making ‘the polluter pay’ by allowing courts to order the offender to meet the
costs for the enforcement and investigation, and for land to be cleaned of
fly-tipped waste
