Britain’s open and green spaces are being turned into rubbish dumps by selfish fly-tippers – and campaigners are demanding tougher fines for those who leave areas including parks strewn with waste rather than taking it to be properly disposed of.
Fields and other beauty spots looked more like tips over recent days as the Mirror documented how Britain is being blighted by mindless fly-tipping. In South Wales, rubbish has been dumped all over Gelligaer common in Caerphilly, creating an eyesore while in Brighton, East Sussex, black bin bags, tyres and broken bits of furniture were dumped near the city’s racecourse. It was a similar situation in Blackburn, Lancs.
Last week, writing exclusively in the Mirror, the PM Keir Starmer backed the Great British Spring Clean, which runs until April 6, as the best of “British spirit” which is “helping to take back our streets from the disgraceful selfishness of fly-tippers.”
He said: “Fly-tipping is now all too common and not just in our towns and cities. Some fly-tippers even drive to the countryside just to tip their trash. They block village lanes. Destroy farmers’ crops. Create hideous eyesores in our beauty spots. I understand why people get angry about this. It makes me angry.”
Latest government figures show that councils were forced to deal with 1.5million incidents of fly-tipping between 2023/24 – a rise of 6% in just 12 months with 60% of cases involving household waste in 2023/24. Some 47,000 incidents were of tipper lorry load size or larger, an increase of 11% from 2022/23, and cleaning them up cost taxpayers £13.1million.
While the average court fine rose from £526 to £530, the total number of court fines decreased by 8% to 1,378, with the combined value of these fines down 7% to £730,000. The most common place for fly-tipping was on pavements and roads, which accounted for 37% of total incidents.
Allison Ogden-Newton OBE, Chief Executive of national environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy, said: “The recently reported 6% increase in incidents dealt with by local authorities – taking the total to a whopping 1.15 million– is frightening and shameful and shows we need leadership from government as a matter of urgency.
“We must tackle the crisis in our broken waste system with national product take-back schemes, a complete reform of the waste carrier license scheme and much tougher sanctions on those criminals who are coming to people’s doors, profiting from ignorance and dumping waste wherever they fancy which we all pay to clean up.
“We must help the public do the right thing with stuff they no longer want or need and address the reality of those who wake up every day to the horrors of fly-tipping on their doorstep.”
Since it started litter heroes across the nation have picked up more than four million bags of harmful rubbish from streets, parks and beaches – that’s more than half a million wheelie bins. Any one of any age can join the campaign but children should be joined by a responsible adult.
The Great British Spring Clean and Great Big School Clean 2025 will take place between now and April 6. You can pledge to pick up a bag of litter – or more – as a group, individual or as a school via via keepbritaintidy.org/
It’s recommended that you use a litter-picker and some gloves. You should also wash your hands regularly. Of course, you will also need a bag to put the litter in.
Count and photograph the bags you collect, and share your pictures online using the hash-tag #LitterHeroes. You can place the litter straight into your own outdoor bins – if it fits or via your local authority recycling centres.
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