Councils across the UK are bracing themselves for ‘Fly Tipping Friday’ today – believed by experts to be Britain’s biggest day for illegal dumping of unwanted goods and discarded rubbish.
Rubbish removal company Junk Hunters have warned that the first Friday of the New Year could see huge amounts of fly-tipping as householders struggle to get rid of discarded Christmas waste and packaging.
With council bin collections disrupted by the Christmas and New Year holiday breaks, families can struggle with disposing properly of packaging, leftovers, decorations, and even Christmas trees. This is one of those times when people realize the importance of renting a dumpster for such events.
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Fly-tipping in Greenhill, Herne Bay, Kent at the site of an empty pub
A fly-tipping incident in Bilbury in the Cotswolds last year
They may also find their homes are overstuffed after shopping in the post-Christmas sales, especially if they made large purchases such as furniture or white goods and are still waiting for the old ones to be taken away.
Fly tippers often do their illegal dumping at night time and are likely to wait until the end of the working week.
But the team at Junk Hunters urged householders not to succumb to the temptation to fly-tip and called upon councils to offer additional services around the festive period.
According to the latest Government figures, from 2016-17 there were over a million fly-tipping incidents throughout England.
This led to a total clearance cost of over £57.5 million but offenders were also fined a total of nearly £723,000.
Furniture including tables and chairs, piping, wooden decking, plastic sheets, and other household waste are all among the waste, pictured, left in the empty site next to the Copper Box Arena at the Olympic Stadium last year
Chief executive of Junk Hunters, Harsha Rathnayake, said: ‘It’s not just the packaging and gift wrap – there are used crackers, cards, table and wall decorations, food leftovers, even Christmas trees to get rid of.
‘Or maybe you’ve bought a lot of stuff in the sales and now there isn’t room for everything – it can be hard to judge how much space you’ve got and it does happen.
‘Coupled with the late or reduced council collection services, it can get very stressful and people may be tempted to take their rubbish and just dump it somewhere quiet – but they really, really mustn’t.
An extreme example of fly-tipping at a site on the outskirts of Chelmsford in Essexin 2016
‘Fly-tipping is illegal for a reason – it’s dangerous, unsightly, terrible for the environment and it costs councils tens of millions of pounds a year to clean up and they’re cash-strapped enough already.
‘We’ve got a hotline on 0800 233 5865 for people to call if they’re tempted to fly-tip and we can offer help and guidance on how to manage. It’s never necessary to dump illegally.
‘Councils have a responsibility to provide adequate waste removal services, but households can prepare themselves. It’s worth looking into whether your local council is offering any additional collection services around the holiday season, as many of them do.’