Quantities of large-scale fly-tipping in England, which is defined as tipper lorry load or more in size, has more than doubled in the past six years, according to a BBC News investigation.
As well as an increase in large-scale dumping, the BBC Shared Data Unit* found that last year councils faced a £12.8m bill to clear more than 36,200 large tips – this accounted for more than a fifth of the overall cost of clearing fly-tips.
According to the most recent government-published figures (April 2018 to March 2019), local authorities in England dealt with over 1 million (1,072,000) fly-tipping incidents, an increase of 8% from the 998,000 reported in 2017/18.
BBC News says organised criminal gangs are being blamed for the continued rise of large fly-tipping incidents across England and reports the Government as saying the rise in incidents could be down to “better recording”.
Fly-tipping in England
According to the most recent government-published figures (April 2018 to March 2019), nearly two thirds (62%) of fly-tips involved household waste. Total incidents involving household waste increased by 2% from 2017/18.
Consistent with previous years, the most common place for fly-tipping to occur was on highways (pavements and roads), which accounted for almost half (46%) of total incidents in 2018/19.
The number of highway incidents has increased by 6% from 2017/18.
The most common size category for fly-tipping incidents in 2018/19 was equivalent to a ‘small van load’ (33% of total incidents), followed by the equivalent of a ‘car boot or less’ (30%).
In 2018/19, 36,000 or 3% of total incidents were of ‘tipper lorry load’ size or larger, which is similar to 2017/18.
In 2018/19, 36,000 or 3% of total incidents were of ‘tipper lorry load’ size or larger, which is similar to 2017/18.
For these large fly-tipping incidents, the cost of clearance to local authorities in England in 2018/19 was £12.9 million, compared with £12.2 million in 2017/18.
Local authorities carried out 499,000 enforcement actions in 2018/19, an increase of 5,000 actions (1%) from 2017/18.
For 2018/19, 12,000 (16%) of fixed penalty notices were issued specifically for small scale fly-tipping, 37,000 (48%) in relation to littering and 26,000 (35%) in relation to other offences.
The number of fines issued increased by 6% to 2,052 in 2018/19, with the value of total fines increasing to £1,090,000 (an increase of 29% on the £843,000 total value of fines in 2017/18).
*The Shared Data Unit makes data journalism available to news organisations across the media industry, as part of a partnership between the BBC and the News Media Association.
For more information on the Shared Data Unit methodology, click here.
For the full dataset, click here. Read more about the Shared Data Unit by clicking here.