Councils issue fly-tipping fines for incidents near recycling sites

Derbyshire and Powys councils announced the separate fines over the last week over the incidents involving trade waste at a household waste and recycling centre (HWRC) and cardboard at bring-back sites.

Derbyshire

In Derbyshire, the county council issued a statement on 2 June, explaining that staff at the Loscoe HWRC turned away a local resident after they suspected “he was trying to dispose of trade waste which isn’t accepted at the site”.

According to the council, the resident then responded by dumping his waste which included construction waste at the site leaving the cost of clean-up to the local taxpayer.

Councillor Carolyn Renwick, cabinet member for infrastructure and environment, said: “Trade waste such as construction waste from household refurbishments is unable to be left at the site and must be disposed of by a registered waste management company. It is important to make sure your waste is taken care of correctly as in some cases if the waste has been found to have been fly-tipped by an unregistered carrier, then the consumer may also be fined.”

Cllr John McCabe, Amber Valley borough council’s cabinet member for environment added that the council “investigates all cases of fly tipping it becomes aware of and will take enforcement action to bring this criminal act to justice”.

The man was handed a fine of £400, according to the council, which he has since paid.

The entrance of the site can be seen below.

Powys

Elsewhere, according to Powys, a resident based in the south of the region was handed a £400 fixed penalty notice after being caught dumping cardboard boxes on the ground at their local community recycling site.

Powys said the resident was caught on CCTV footage by the centre after the waste was found. The cardboard was placed next to the bins after the resident found that they were full.

Cllr Jackie Charlton, cabinet member for a Greener Powys, said: “Some people are under the illusion that if the recycling banks are full, they can just leave their items on the ground.

“This is totally inappropriate, it is illegal and constitutes as fly-tipping, as this local resident has found out to their cost. Not only does it create an eye-sore, but the dumped materials also often get blown around in the wind and ends up being an environmental hazard for the whole area. Plus, it creates an awful lot of work, for our already stretched workforce.”

Powys said it was able to issue the fine by working with the partnership initiative, Fly-tipping Action. It added that the waste awareness and enforcement team are “quickly and easily able to set up motion sensitive, infra-red cameras in fly-tipping hotspots across the county”.