Fly tipping needs to be 'disruptive' to communities for attitudes to change - meeting told

The team tasked with tackling fly tipping in Bradford recently appeared before a Council committee, and said immediately clearing up fly tipping gave people the impression that they could just dump waste wherever they wanted and have the taxpayer foot the bill for its removal.

The Regeneration and Environment Scrutiny Committee were discussing the issue at a meeting on Thursday evening when they were told 16,000 reports of fly tipping in Bradford were made last year.

And over 4,000 tonnes of waste was collected.

Members were told that there were links between the move to fortnightly bin collections and fly tipping.

Surveillance techniques such as hidden cameras were increasingly being used to monitor fly tipping hotspots.

Amjad Ishaq, Environmental Enforcement Manager, said while there were issues with items like furniture being dumped, there was also an increase in complaints about household rubbish is bin bags being dumped in streets and alleyways, and at the usual bin collection points.

Area ‘starting to deteriorate’ just six months after clean up project

Great Horton was one area that was particularly blighted by this type of crime.

Mr Ishaq said there had been a project in the area to tackle such fly tipping, including warning landlords they needed to be more accountable and letting residents know the consequences of fly tipping.

Although a large amount of waste was cleared from the area during this month long campaign in march, and numerous warnings and fines issued, he said: "Unfortunately the rubbish started appearing again.

"It can not just be enforcement - the there had to be a change in attitude in the community.

"People begin to think that if they dump rubbish in the street it will be removed the next day. If as a Council we collect this fly tipping immediately, the public will not see how big a problem fly tipping is."

One idea trialled by the Council is to install crime scene tape around fly tipping, and leave it there for several days.

Mr Ishaq added: "People then become more aware of the problem - it gets the message across."

Stuart Russo said: "The change to alternately weekly collections has affected fly tipping, but we're hoping things are now starting to settle down.

"The amount of waste going through our waste centres, and the amount of recycling, is going up, so there is a good story there. The vast majority of people who have more waste than can fit in their bins go to the waste sites - they do the right thing."

He said 89 per cent of fly tipping was collected within three working days, but Mr Russo added: "Unfortunately if people see fly tipping is collected the next day, they will be more likely to do it.

""There is a school of thought that the more disruptive fly tipping is to the local community, then the more likely people will be to to identify fly tippers. If there is enough social aggravation people will come forward and provide the evidence we need to find out who is fly tipping. Fly tipping has to be made unacceptable enough for people to want to combat it."

Members were told that while some people travel to different parts of the city to fly tip - the majority of an area's fly tipping is down to people living or working in that area.