I now understand fly tippers - rant warning!

[aiwblam]

Previously, I would have said that fly tippers were simply scummy people who did not care about the environment or community. Having been to our local tip this morning, I now understand why people fly tip and I think we are going to see astronomical levels of it.

I went to the tip to dispose of a 10yo computer and monitor, some assorted metal bits and pieces (mainly from broken stuff, but I was trying to keep the metal out of landfill to, you know, save the environment) and a sheet of wood which we used to use as a dog guard. Nothing difficult, standard stuff that people dispose of.

Our tip is open under "emergency" usage. This has been the case since covid. Apparently residents are supposed to just "store" their litter and only visit the tip if they can't. Well, we were tripping over this stuff on our narrow landing and with kids, dog and us so I decided to tip it.

I queued for 90 mins. Upon entering the hallowed gates, you are interrogated by the Gestapo. You are directed to a bay in which you must park, regardless of what kind of stuff you have to dump and the relevant bin being at the other end of the tip. Several of the bins are pay bins, ferociously guarded. A woman stepped out of a line to recycle some plastic and was screamed at.

The asbestos bin is a pay bin, along with about 6 others. Council, you fucking idiots. People are bagging asbestos up and dumping it in the free "non recyclable" bin. In fact, anything that belongs in a pay bin is being bagged up and dumped in non recyclable. Not by me, but it's pretty bloody obvious what's going on. The pay bins look so clean and empty. The tip opens short hours and is closed Weds and Thurs. 17,000 people live in the catchment area of this tip.

Our landfill bins are collected fortnightly and woe betide anyone who has their bin open even a bloody crack. Our recycling is supposed to be weekly but they often leave behind one category, which we are again instructed to "store".

This is what happens when councils hand over a functioning council tip to a private company who cut costs in any way they can. Closures, hour cuts, pay bins.

This is an area with a lot of woodland around. People go to the woods at night and tip the contents of their vehicle out into the woods. Now I know why and I don't even think they are particularly bad people. I think they are people who are doing it out of necessity as there is no reasonable way to get rid of their litter. I was out for a total of 2 hours. Who can afford to waste time like that? I needed the bloody toilet and got pins and needles in my leg.

Why can't councils see why stuff is fly tipped everywhere? Ours is whining about spending record amounts to clean it up. Erm...do you not see cause and effect?

End of rant

@ClaudiaWankleman

Having asked them what happens next, they said “all goes to landfill”. So I wonder why we even bother.

There are a number of issues with waste disposal, as this thread proves, but this is just conspiracy theory level hyperbole.

Is it? Mum got very upset because she saw a documentary about her careful recycling going into landfill. She is still very conscientious.

@ClaudiaWankleman

Having asked them what happens next, they said “all goes to landfill”. So I wonder why we even bother.

There are a number of issues with waste disposal, as this thread proves, but this is just conspiracy theory level hyperbole.

No it’s not. It’s the truth. Not all councils recycle what you leave at the kerbside. But that’s Northamptonshire for you. I’m actually friendly and talk to my bin men as well as tip them.

This thread also shows what a huge variance in rules there are amongst the differing councils.

God I'm so glad ours is neither a booking system or limiting what we can throw away, it's been a godsend. But yes totally understand your point OP.

@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe but we're not just talking about refuse collection, we're talking about skip where you go dispose of waste that can't be taken by refuse collection... if you cannot get it collected and the skip refuse to take it... how do you get rid of it?!!

Went to mine for the first time this week and was expecting to have an experience like the op. Couldn't believe it was so easy and I had been putting it off for so long. There was no queue, staff very helpful and I could easily dump all the stuff I took.

Cant you just arrange a bulky waste collection?

Our council do 1 free collection of up to 5 bulky items or 15 bags of garden waste every 2 months. If you need more you can pay £5 for a pick up.

They've continued running all the way through coronavirus and you just leave stuff on the front of the house on collection day for the guys to pick up.

Our tip no longer accepts general waste. Its all split into recycling bins which is great. Except not everything has a category. Last trip saw me bringing home some old rattan storage. I've given up I now use a private (licensed) waste collection.

Our council (Bath and North East Somerset) are considering closing the tip in Bath- the largest concentration of the population in the authority- and moving all the waste management to my town. So Bath residents will have over an hours round trip to dispose of their waste.

Meanwhile the same council is considering a planning application to build houses behind our tip.

Council funding has been cut to the bone, and the approach to recycling and waste is a symptom of that.

Councils receive(d) a huge chunk of funding from central gov not council tax - no one ever tells you that. So when it was cut, they have to run the same (or more services) with significantly less. I think it is on average a 40% reduction since 2010.

So they’ve been forced to use waste companies who are shit, they haven’t got the time or resources to handle waste - because the Tories have gutted their funding.

That’s the reality. I’ve worked in local authority, I’ve seen it first hand and couldn’t quite believe it until I worked there.

The people working at our council tip are a lesson in what happens when you give someone a clipboard. They've transformed from helpful, relaxed and friendly guys to Cyril Blake from On The Buses. Officious and obstructive.

Why a spacious and open air facility needs a fucking booking system when I can just walk in to a supermarket is beyond me.

You have choices - stop whinging about the massive (minimal) council tax increases and pay up for local services, pay for the services privately, or stop electing idiots to central government who are happy to pay £millions to their buddies for rubbish PPE, but not properly fund public services for the population at large.

Because it's going to get worse. Neither recycling plants nor removing fly tips are statutory services; and many councils are now already stopping or cutting back on those services (and others) in order to pay for statutory services that they still can't afford to run even with the savings from cuts.

While I agree with you about the general principle of properly funding public services, I actually think waste is a bad example and should be funded completely inversely to how it is today.

The fundamental problem is that disposal is totally disconnected from purchase and consumption. By the time it comes to getting rid of it, it already exists so from the planet’s point of view flytip vs landfill is pretty irrelevant, it’s all either recycled (not much) or dumped somewhere on the planet.

So make it easy and free at the point of need to reduce flytipping and litter, which you fund by loading all sales with a disposal tax.

So, if I were benevolent dictator, I’d put a disposal tax on all new goods. No ifs, no buts, no exceptions for commercial use...if you buy something new you pay for its eventual disposal.

That money goes to fund widespread recycling, “clean” (as best we can) free at point of use disposal facilities, rubbish collection, street cleansing etc etc.

Everything new gets more expensive, unavoidably. Which won’t be popular. But the thing is, the costs ALREADY exist today, we just make everyone pay through taxes instead of pushing it into the up front purchasing decision. Plus, making new more expensive also encourages more repair and reuse, lowering demand for brand new reducing the overall waste altogether, which from the planet’s POV is the only relevant measure.

Ours is only open 3 days a week and we have to book online. I can never get a slot. The local area facebook page keep posting photos of increased fly tipping around the area and complaints about the tip only being open 3 days a week.
We have to pay extra to have the garden waste taken every two weeks.

[quote pheasantsinlove]@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe but we're not just talking about refuse collection, we're talking about skip where you go dispose of waste that can't be taken by refuse collection... if you cannot get it collected and the skip refuse to take it... how do you get rid of it?!! [/quote]
I work with councils across the UK and have been on most of the recycling (tip) sites. The council has a duty to dispose of wastes generated by households and they have to make provision for this.

Are you actually saying that you can't have access to any recycling site? That the council won't collect your black bag waste? Doesn't operate kerbside recycling facilities?

If this is the case then I suggest you get in touch with your local councillor.

I think, as ClaudiaWankelman has said, there are complexities with wastes disposal and conspiracy/throwing hands in the air/fingers in ears, does play a part. It's certainly my experience anyway when you hear nonsense about 'it goes to landfill what's the point?'. Not a thought for contamination or any other issue, just a broad-brush, 'I won't bother then'. So annoying - and costly to all tax payers.

A lot of things I used to take to the tip they could sell on as they had a section where people could buy used items.

Now that it is generally harder to access the tip I put those items outside my home for people to take for free and just take the real rubbish.

I agree councils don't exactly make things easy, but they are not making it impossible either.

Essentially what you're insinuating is that fly tipping is ok because taking rubbish to the tip is a bit of an inconvenience/difficult?

Nope.

OooPourUsACuppa's post highlights the points about budgets. There's likely to be a change affecting wastes through Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR); it's always been there (End of Life Vehicles, for example) but not in an applicable format. It will mean that producers of packaging, tetrapak, plastics, etc, will be paying to get that material back post-consumer. The councils will receive the service FOC - and the consumer will pay a bit more at the point of purchase which is as it should be. We want the products so we have to pay for the disposal costs, cradle to grave.

Stuffin and if those people strew them about, you could get fined for fly-tipping. It's your responsibility to dispose of your items lawfully.

Seeing as ours only allow people who own cars to use the facilities, I wouldn't know what it's like these days.

I would book a bulk rubbish collection, but a) bulk means 5 items a year, b) they don't do 'household, garden, DIY, wood, electrical other than refrigerators or any items that can be taken to our recycling centres' - the ones we're not allowed into because we're poor - and c) they're not doing them this year.

Would pay for a garden waste bin, but then we would be literally physically unable to get in through the front door, as the compulsory wheelie bins are too wide to take through the house, so have to live out the front and block the disabled access to the property.

Did ask once whilst on a waiting list for surgery what would happen if I needed to use a wheelchair to access my wheelchair accessible home and they said I'd just have to 'get somebody else to take your rubbish to the recycling centre each week'.

I now understand why, when living in my flat, there were so many things brought over under cover of darkness by people who lived in the surrounding houses; if they didn't own a car, they had no way of disposing of the items concerned.

@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe

Totally agree. But what do you want me to do? Force the council to separately collect our bins across an entire county?!
Every Thursday they turn up and tip all the bins into the same refuse truck. There is everything mixed in together - food, garden, recycling and general waste. Off to landfill.
Friends in the next village also have the same thing happen and posted on the local Facebook - and yes others have the same thing happen on their collection days to.
It’s not separated later on after collection unlike some commercial ware collectors such as Biffa.

@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe

Stuffin and if those people strew them about, you could get fined for fly-tipping. It's your responsibility to dispose of your items lawfully.

Over the years no one has ever done that and often they knock to let me know they are taking them.

The items are actually still on my land but at the front so I am not even putting them out on the public street.

Occasionally I have put a token amount on the item to be put through the letter box and that has happened because the majority of people are honest.

Thankfully our tip isn’t bad as they only collect our waste and recycling every 3 weeks

@Stuffin

A lot of people here do that - but they post on Facebook it’s free to whoever wants it, it’s usually gone in under an hour.

@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe the local council skips won't accept household diy and garden waste. If you breakdown an old shed/greenhouse/fence panels you're not allowed to dispose of them at the council tip. I've 4 old rotten fence panels propped up against my wall on the driveway because the tip won't accept them

I really can't stand flytipping, we have orchards next to us and a couple of weeks ago someone dumped several bags of normal household rubbish, Done during the time when the council missed bin collections due to snow and told everyone to store it until next collection in 2 weeks time , bloody annoying I see that but it affected everyone and council took extra bags ( eventually!).
Our council tip is open 9-3.30 7 days a week ,book online for a slot so often a 2-3 week wait for weekend slot which is frustrating but once there its fairly quick in and out but I agree it should be easier, I think they should also allow vans in but limit it to one booking a week or similar. our council have suspended bulky waste collections for sofas, beds etc due to covid so I paid for a private refuse company to take away our old sofa which was expensive so I get the temptation to dump, particularly when you see it all around you but I wouldnt do it.