Tim Bonner: Littering landscapes - the countryside's battle with fly-tipping

Dumping rubbish in the countryside is an anathema to most of us, but new government figures show that fly-tipping is at a 14-year high with over 1.1 million incidents on council land alone in 2023-24. The government’s figures only include incidents recorded by local authorities and exclude the large-scale incidents dealt with by the Environment Agency and most that occur on private land. These have a particular impact on farmers and landowners who become responsible for clearing up waste dumped on their land.

This growing problem was recorded by respondents to our latest Rural Crime Survey who reported more incidents of fly-tipping than of any other crime in the countryside. The issue will just not go away despite successive governments promising crackdowns and legislating. After campaigning by the Countryside Alliance fines that can be issued for littering and fly tipping under fixed penalty notices (FPNs) were increased in 2023, but worryingly the number of prosecutions and FPNs is now falling as the number of fly-tipping incidents rises.

Environment Secretary Steve Reed has said that the government will crack down on fly tipping, punish rubbish dumpers and “give ministers the power to issue statutory guidance to councils to drive up fly-tipping enforcement”. The government is right to encourage better enforcement and local authorities must not only investigate more incidents but also pursue those investigations competently enough that they deliver a successful prosecution or penalty. Hopefully these measures will then prove effective, but it seems unlikely that alone they will reverse the current trend.

In the end fly-tipping is a product of culture and cost. It seems to be more acceptable in this country than it is in others to dump rubbish. Littering is rife as anyone who checks the verges as they drive around the countryside at this time of year can see. The casual dropping of litter surely legitimises more extensive dumping of rubbish. In part this may be driven by the costs and complications (some of them unnecessary) of using council recycling sites. It is the increasing cost of disposing of domestic and especially commercial waste which has led to organised criminal gangs becoming involved in fly-tipping, in some cases on an industrial scale.

All this means that there is not a simple solution. Neither better education, larger fines, more enforcement, nor more accessible legal waste disposal are going to resolve this problem by themselves. Delivering all of those things, however, might just have an impact and given the cost to society and the environment it is incumbent on Ministers to pursue all of them.