Press

A local council is seen spending £150,000 removing three football pitches worth of waste left by fly-tippers in a North London suburb, on tonight’s ITV documentary ‘Fly Tipping: Britain’s Lockdown Problem’. This week the government told councils to prepare to reopen tips after seeing an increase in fly-tipping since the lockdown, a problem highlighted after an eco-conscious man created new app ‘ClearWaste’.

The Government is calling on Herts and Essex county councils to reopen their household waste recycling centres (HWRC) as fly-tipping increases. Local Government Secretary Robert Jenrick said on Tuesday (April 28): "We know that with more people at home more rubbish and recycling is being created. With many councils deciding to close their waste and recycling centres during the pandemic, there is also nowhere to take the extra rubbish.

With the country facing potentially many more weeks in lockdown, it’s clear a large number of households are using the spare time indoors to carry out DIY jobs both inside the home and in the garden. Naturally, this is leading to an excess amount of waste which people are keen to dispose of quickly. However, Covid-19 and the subsequent lockdown has meant that a reported 90% of recycling and refuse centres have been closed.

ClearWaste founder Martin Montague said: “It is disgraceful and just adds to the burden on our police (and) hard-pressed local council workers.” Fly-Tipping Action Wales said there had been a rise in rubbish collection services advertised on social media and people should ensure they only use registered waste carriers – or face a possible fine.

Sky News also reports that flytipping is also on the rise. 'ClearWaste', an illegal garbage dumping reporting app, saw a 54% increase in illegal garbage dumping nationwide in the first week of the blockade. In the UK, unauthorized dumping of trash can be fined up to five years or £50,000 in prison, and about 66 million won in our money.

A lot of people who are cooped up during these lockdown restrictions are using the time to renovate their homes of give them a good spring clean. But local government officials in councils across Britain and Ireland are noticing that the lockdown means that there’s lot more fly-tipping going on.

Meanwhile, as the world recognized the 50th anniversary of Earth Day and four years since the signing of the Paris Agreement to tackle climate change on Wednesday, reports have emerged of a massive increase in illegal dumping and domestic waste collection UK-wide due to the lockdown. The Guardian reported that nearly a third of authorities reported an increase on normal volumes of waste collected through household bins.

Businessman Martin Montague says his ClearWaste app is being bombarded daily with hundreds of photographs from across the UK. Anyone caught flytipping risks prosecution and up to five years in jail Pic: ClearWasteImage:Rubbish dumped illegally on private land is the responsibility of landownersPic: ClearWasteHis app allows those who find flytip sites to take and upload photographs which his staff pass on to the relevant council.

Millionaire businessman Martin Montague says his ClearWaste app is bombarded daily with hundreds of photographs across the UK. He said, “In the first week of the lockout, we have seen a 54% increase nationally from the previous week’s figure. By Easter, the reported fly shipments had increased by 75%.

Household bin collections have continued through the lockdown, though more than a quarter of councils have stopped collecting garden waste.Mr Montague showed me two recent flytips close to his home, one a heap of mostly tree branches and old fencing blocking a narrow country lane and the other a bigger dump of concrete, metal and tyres left on the edge of a wheat field.

An illegal fly-tipping dumping ground now has so much rubbish it can be seen from space. The site is littered with household items including sofas, bathtubs, fridges and freezers amongst the mess. Hundreds of car tyres, piles of clothes, suitcases and doors are scattered across the disused road off the M4 in Newport. And the site is now so littered pictures of the piles of waste are now visible from satellite on Google Earth.

Recycling centres in Devon could soon reopen following their initial closure following the coronavirus pandemic. All Household Waste Recycling Centres in the county were closed on March 24 after the Government announced lockdown restrictions, but yesterday, local authorities agreed to reopen some of the 20 household waste recycling centres across Greater Manchester.