Farmers are being urged to sign a government petition that is aiming to impose tougher penalties on rural fly-tippers.
New fixed penalty fines of up to £400 for fly-tipping came into force in May as an alternative to prosecution but the petition says the penalty does not go far enough. According to Defra, 900,000 fly-tipping incidents were dealt with by local authorities in England during 2014/15.
The petition says: "Incidents of large scale illegal fly tipping are occurring far to frequently and the fly tips are almost on an industrial scale, especially in rural areas. It is obvious to all that organised criminals have become involved and are profiting from fly tipping."
CLA Midlands rural surveyor Mark Riches said that with fewer than 2,000 prosecutions for fly-tipping in 2014/15, more effective action is urgently needed.
He said: "We receive regular reports from our members of fly tipping, particularly when their land is located on the fringes of urban areas. The waste involved is not just the occasional bin bag, but large household items, from unwanted sofas to broken washing machines and building materials. The CLA has been calling for offenders to be dealt with more robustly and we welcome this latest tightening in the regulations.
"Fixed penalty notices will not solve the problem, but they are a positive step in tackling an issue which is estimated to cost rural businesses an average of £800 per incident and is a continuing and damaging blight on our countryside."
'Mindless individuals'
Nature charity the Woodland Trust said its costs to clear up fly-tipping had risen again this year, to an estimated £27,982 in 2015, compared to £22,850 in 2013 and £24,427 in 2014.
The charity, which owns and manages more than 1,000 woods across the UK, said it had recorded 112 fly-tipping incidents on its land so far this year.
Some of the waste they have found has been out of the ordinary, at Scroggs wood in Cumbria, slurry and milk waste have polluted a stream, while at Nidd Gorge in North Yorkshire, a dead deer was left in a car park.
In total the Woodland Trust said the cost of clearing up litter and fly-tipping had cost it £767,707 since 2010.
Norman Starks, Woodland Trust UK operations director, said: "Fly-tipping is an illegal activity that currently costs us tens of thousands of pounds each year to clear up.
"This means that a collection of mindless individuals are preventing us from caring for and improving our native woods for the benefit of local communities and wildlife."
