Several councils around England will be awarded grants to tackle fly-tipping, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has announced. £450,000 of funding will support a range of trial projects with the aim of stopping the illegal disposal of waste.

Illegal dumping

Defra has released an example list of the projects that the funding will go towards:

• CCTV: The use of covert and overt CCTV cameras at hot-spot locations. It is hoped by the Government that cameras will help to reduce the numbers of people dumping waste illegally, while also providing further evidence to help identify those that continue to offend.
• Artificial intelligence: Buckinghamshire Council plans to use a combination of AI enabled Rapid Deployable Cameras (RDC) and Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras to provide an alert to any visible left items at fly-tipping hotspots in real-time. These items will be linked to the vehicle that deposited them, allowing officers to investigate.
• Delivering education to communities on fly-tipping: Funding for Durham Council for CCTV will lead to individuals being directed to the council’s self-funded digital educational tool for those issued with an on-the-spot fine for fly-tipping. The tool aims to educate and encourage long term behaviour change and completion reduces the amount of the fine.
• ‘No bags on the street’ policy – Newham Council will receive funding to prevent bags being on the street in front of business premises which can attract additional waste. The Council will scale up their trial of containers to house residential and commercial waste, which resulted in a 24 percent reduction in fly-tipping. Single items, such as furniture and mattresses, accounted for 16 per cent of total fly-tipping incidents in 2020/21, rising by seven per cent from the year before. To tackle this, the Government is considering measures such as ecodesign, ecolabelling and extended producer responsibility – where manufacturers are responsible for the costs of dealing with waste created by their products.

These plans build on extra funding given to the Environment Agency to tackle waste crime, as well as new powers to stop illegal waste sites posing a risk to the environment. New powers include the ability to lock up sites and force rogue operators to clean up all their waste.

Yesterday, Defra announced a new consultation on DIY waste charges and HWRC booking systems, similarly with the aim of tackling fly-tipping and littering, all of which Defra says ‘create additional costs for local authorities and cause environmental issues’.

Marcus Gover, WRAP CEO said: "The latest IPCC report clearly states that ‘it’s now or never’ if we are to act on global warming. This stark reminder that how we use the world’s natural resources is threatening our very existence signposts material efficiency and recycling among priorities.
"Minimising waste is central to this and the introductions of grants to reduce fly tipping across England and Wales are necessary to help prevent the continual environmental cost of this illegal activity."

Environment Minister Jo Churchill added: "When it comes to fly-tipping, enough is enough. These appalling incidents cost us £392 million a year and it is time to put a stop to them.
"The funding that we have announced for Local Authorities today will help them trial innovative new projects to put a stop to fly tipping. We will learn from the successes – and replicate them."