Fly tipping believed to cost taxpayers £50m as incidents mainly rise in rural areas
The cost of fly-tipping in England has hit £50 million this year as the problem appears to be getting worse, in particular in rural areas where dumping the rubbish appears to be a 'quick fix' for offenders.
Councils have had to deal with more than 900,000 cases, official figures show for the year 2014/2015. The clear-up costs rose by 11%, whilst overall incidents rose by 5.6%.
However, these figures do not include any fly-tipping incidents on private land as farmers and landowners are legally obliged to clear those themselves and pay for the costs out of their own pocket.
The Environment Department, which collects the data from councils, said the rise could reflect improvements in gathering information on flytipping as well as a genuine increase in incidents.
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."
Derek Holliday, head of environment for the CLA, said he was not surprised by the increase in Defra’s figures, as farmers had also been reporting a rise in the amount of rubbish left on their land.