A range of local authorities across England today (March 20) are holding ‘crime-scene’ fly-tipping events as part of a Keep Britain Tidy campaign.
Brighton and Hove city council raising awareness of fly-tipping
The campaign, launched today, aims to make the public aware of the need to use legitimate companies or other appropriate routes for disposal of extra waste.
Explaining the rationale behind the campaign, Keep Britain Tidy said its campaign “targets ordinary people to make them aware that by giving their bulky waste to unregistered waste carriers they could be participating in a crime.” And, the organisation said that the latest government statistics showed that fly-tipping has increased, with 67% coming from householders.
Hashtag
Those local authorities across the country taking part in the campaign – which uses the hashtag #CrimeNotToCare – have put collected fly-tipping, wrapped in crime-scene tape, in prominent locations to illustrate the growing problem.
The campaign has been supported by 15 council partners including Brent, Brighton and Hove, and Hull city council as pictured.
Keep Britain Tidy chief executive Allison Ogden-Newton said: “We are launching this campaign at a time when our country is in the grip of a fly-tipping epidemic.
Brent city council creates a fly-tipping ‘crime-scene’
“The latest statistics show that there were almost 940,000 individual fly-tipping incidents reported by local authorities. When you combine this figure with the fact that 67% of our farmers have been affected by fly-tipping on their land, it is clear that we need to act now to address the problem.”
Research
And the chief executive added: “Our research shows that less than half of people understand that they can be prosecuted, and end up with a criminal record, if they pay someone to take away their waste who subsequently fly-tips it.
“A third of people also think that it’s OK to do things that are, legally, classed as fly-tipping so the launch of #CrimeNotToCare is vital first step in trying to turn the tide on the fly-tipping epidemic that is costing our country millions of pounds to clean up.”
Keep Britain Tidy said that they hope to reduce what they feel is an ‘alarming’ rise in criminal fly-tipping.
Businesses
The new campaign comes almost 12 months after the Environmental Services Association (ESA) launched its ‘Right Place, Right Waste’ campaign which they said aimed to provide ‘practical’ information for companies, partnerships, family businesses and sole traders to combat waste crime.
Hull city council takes part in the #CrimeNotToCare campaign
ESA’s campaign suggested an estimated 56% of businesses were not complying with laws surrounding waste disposal, a large majority of which were found to be small and medium-sized enterprises. The campaign centred on an interactive website which informed smaller enterprises (SMEs) how to dispose of their waste correctly.
Keep Britain Tidy will also launch an ongoing campaign to provide householders with the information on how to dispose of their rubbish correctly and avoid prosecution.
Related links
Keep Britain Tidy
The post Councils hold ‘crime-scene’ fly-tipping events appeared first on letsrecycle.com.
Source: letsrecycle.com Waste Managment
