Waste Dumping and FlyTipping

Kennine
Kennine Forum Participant Posts: 3,472
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edited October 2018 in General Chat #1

This practice is growing, is a blight on the environment and also a health hazard.  BBC report on the antisocial problem .. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-45736541

surprised

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  • redface
    redface Forum Participant Posts: 1,701
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    edited October 2018 #2

    It can only get worse when local councils, as my one is, are going to withdraw collection of garden waste unless we pay extra for the service.

     

  • JVB66
    JVB66 Forum Participant Posts: 22,892
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    edited October 2018 #3

    It has got worse since our concil started charging for garden waste collection,as it seems the bins are quite mobile which allows some householders to dump their garden waste on public footpaths, which then the council clear as they are obliged by law to clear footpaths of "fly tipping"

  • richardandros
    richardandros Club Member Posts: 2,681 ✭✭✭
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    edited October 2018 #4

     We have a wonderful scheme in our little seaside town.  Although the local authority still collect garden and food waste, a local allotment society also come round every Monday and collect garden waste in the old big green bags the local authority used to provide before they went over to wheelie bins.

    They then compost it and use it on their allotments and what is left over is available for collection - free of charge - to the local community.

    Perfect re-cycling and everyone benefits.

     

  • Oneputt
    Oneputt Club Member Posts: 9,144 ✭✭✭
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    edited October 2018 #5

    Although we do compost a fair amount we also pay £35/year for our garden waste to be collected, a small price to pay.  The worst offenders are unlicensed builders (?) who dump all sort of hazardous waste all over the country cos they want to save a few quid.  Be aware if you employ one of these cowboys who subsequently fly tip you could be liable to prosecution and clean up costs

  • brue
    brue Forum Participant Posts: 21,176 ✭✭✭✭✭
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    edited October 2018 #6

    I wonder if you mean Rights of Way rather than Public Footpaths? Owners of rights of way like ourselves use garden clippings to build up the paths which are subject to frequent wear and tear by users. We can hear one or two people grumbling about it as they walk along (probably expecting tarmac in the countryside wink) but it has been a an excellent way to preserve the paths in our locality. Better to recycle in this way than expect the council to pay to do it at a depot.

    Public footpaths are normally in more formal settings like parks etc. But Rights of Way, often mis-labelled as public footpaths, all have owners who have to keep them in good repair to allow access. smile

  • redface
    redface Forum Participant Posts: 1,701
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    edited October 2018 #7

    To go further, I suspect that I will not be alone in making use of bonfires to dispose of this waste.

    The resultant greenhouse gasses are not likely to help the planet's overall situation.

    So be it!

  • JVB66
    JVB66 Forum Participant Posts: 22,892
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    edited October 2018 #8

    The paths are just signposted footpath or also bridleways that are around us as we have numerouse livery stables in the area

  • SteveL
    SteveL Club Member Posts: 12,299 ✭✭✭
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    edited October 2018 #9

    Same here JVB. Never seen a path signposted right of way, although it is a designation on maps. 

    All the ones round here are either labelled footpath or bridleway and they are certainly not in formal settings.

  • brue
    brue Forum Participant Posts: 21,176 ✭✭✭✭✭
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    edited October 2018 #10

    But they'll probably be rights of way and owned by someone other than the LA, hence some owners repair the paths with garden clippings, hedge trimmings etc. If there is any other type of "fly tipping" on rights of way, bridleways etc it's up to the owners to clear it up. If the council are asked to do this, the bill can be sent to the unlucky rights of way owner. JVB may not realise this, but it's a fact of rights of way ownership. It's normal procedure to find out who owns the path before any costs are incurred by the LA.

  • JVB66
    JVB66 Forum Participant Posts: 22,892
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    edited October 2018 #11

    The majority of paths/bridleways in our part of the county,will be kept clear by either the borough or county council, and a phone call or e-mail normally get results within couple of days of notifications as we are in a conservation area,and the local ancient woods full of centuries old trees and left over very old trees from the original estates and  some of which we still have, Knebworth and Hatfield houses are the two most known and are all very anti rubbish and we are between the two ,with Brocket Hall to the west,where we live were the grounds of Digswell House (  now apartments) and to the east the other side of town is built on the Panshanger House grounds now all gone

     

  • SteveL
    SteveL Club Member Posts: 12,299 ✭✭✭
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    edited October 2018 #12

    Interesting brue, are you also responsible for the stiles? I have noticed that sometimes they have labels on saying they have been put in by various organisations / walking clubs.

  • brue
    brue Forum Participant Posts: 21,176 ✭✭✭✭✭
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    edited October 2018 #13

    Yes, but you sometimes get groups or individuals who want to erect kissing gates instead of stiles as they are easier to use so they offer to donate them and also PCs will assist. Depends also on livestock and what is more suitable, at home the sheep seem to operate their own escape systems...not to mention the humans who leave gates open.

    Sorry this taking it away from fly tipping. wink

  • old ludlovian
    old ludlovian Forum Participant Posts: 132
    edited October 2018 #14

    I am retired now and go walking every day so I take a bag with me  and pick up all cans  and plastic bottles on my way just  trying to give something  back to our wonderfully country if more of  us did it we would soon clear up a lot the litter see bin it don't leave it please help  ?

  • Takethedogalong
    Takethedogalong Forum Participant Posts: 17,031 ✭✭✭
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    edited October 2018 #15

    Woke up to find somelow life has dumped a load of nasty rubbish in the pedestrian walkway through to our tiny little cul de sac. Scattered all over. Deep joy as a quick flick through found some incriminating name and address documents, so a phone call to our LA, and some obnoxious parasite is about to get their comeuppance. Can't stand littering.......yell

  • paul56
    paul56 Forum Participant Posts: 937
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    edited October 2018 #16

    Drove over to my brother's house a few days ago and by the side of the road on a quiet country lane was enough bedroom furniture, mattresses and bed heads to furnish a small flat! The though that someone has had at least a Transit full of rubbish and just dumped it appalls me. 

  • JVB66
    JVB66 Forum Participant Posts: 22,892
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    edited October 2018 #17

    Most of us who dog walk tend to have a bag of some sort to collect litter if seen, 

    Most of the problems we have at home with litter is during school term times when a trail can be followed from our local co op down our road through a footpath across a field, a bridleway, past the church (very old)along by the cricket club, across a road and onto the academy(comp school) but it is not the "students"according to the Headmistress,frowneven though there is not the problem out of school term timessurprised

    Ps the actual distance is about half a milecool

  • Hedgehurst
    Hedgehurst Forum Participant Posts: 576
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    edited October 2018 #18

    Restrictions on local tips don't help either - our closest one is open slightly more than half the week only, and unless one checks carefully, there's a risk of turning up & finding it closed, with the next nearest around half an hour away in daytime traffic. We've learned to check, but it's presumably a temptation to some just to dump it.

    Then the tips insist on a limited number of visits within a 2 month period, or else you get classed as commercial & charged accordingly. When demolishing my own old garden shed and clearing stuff round it, I reached my limit before I'd finished. Again, there are those who'll just head off & dump it. (In my case it was a decent excuse for taking a break!)

     

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited October 2018 #19

    Is it any worse today than it was a few decades back? I remember as a youth articles in the local press about asbestos and even radio active materials being fly tipped. 

  • jennyc
    jennyc Forum Participant Posts: 957
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    edited October 2018 #20

    I’m not sure that I’ve seen a rise in ‘fly tipping’ over the years. When I think back to my teens, there were no household waste sites, nowhere to drop off an old fridge or sofa. Back then you had to arrange and pay for the Council to collect large items. So lots of large items were just left at the roadside. But nor do I see the quantities of large items fly tipped, reducing. There really can be no excuse - until, as an organiser for local litter picks I found a complete car wheel with a tyre, dumped in a local recreation area. My HWRC wouldn’t take it, and the same applies to paint along with many flammable/ corrosive liquids. Which is presumably why it was fly tipped in a public space. Dog poo bags are thrown into bushes in disgraceful numbers and the detritus left by children and teenagers is a clear indication that their parents have bypassed instruction on acceptable behaviour. Ditches too are a favourite repository for anything that depositors can’t be bothered to take to their nearest HWRC. It’s a sad reflection on widespread avoidance of citizenship.

  • Extugger
    Extugger Forum Participant Posts: 1,293
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    edited October 2018 #21

    A very valid point.

    What do most of us do when we dispose of white goods, a large piece of furniture or a mattress? If it won't fit in the 'tug' we use a trailer, beg or borrow a van, only to be told by some Jobsworth in a dirty green vest at the local tip "You can't fetch that on 'ere mate - you need a permit" or "That trailers got too many wheels so you're a commercial outfit and they're not allowed on 'ere"

    If we do our hardest as decent citizens to dispose of said items only to meet with such resistance, it's no wonder the unscrupulous fly tip

  • Metheven
    Metheven Club Member Posts: 3,987 ✭✭✭
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    edited October 2018 #22

    If you are a decent citizen and make every effort to dispose of waste responsibly but come up against obstacles, there is still no excuse to unscrupulously fly tip, If so then you were never a decent citizen to start with.

    Decent citizens will go that extra mile to ensure it 'tips' where it should.

  • EasyT
    EasyT Forum Participant Posts: 16,194
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    edited October 2018 #23

    Two years ago my neighbour took his panel van motorhome to the tip with rubbish in the back including a fridge. It is obviously a motorhome with kitchen, dining area, built in shower toilet but the rear bed/seat fold back to sidewalls giving a load area. He was turned away as a van. He asked if he came back with car and trailer would that be OK. The reply was 'no trailers'. I was able to tell him that he could get a free book of 10 (?) tickets to permit him entry. 

    If you don't know about it there can be a problem. When my F-I-L had died and we were emptying his home I would have had a similar problem and possibly twice times over. Fortunately I was aware. He lived in Oscroft near Tarvin, Cheshire where as eldest daughter and I were around 20 miles away in Wales. 

    Eldest was able to organise tickets for Cheshire as executor with some faff and I for our areas of Wales.

    I picked up eldest and drove 5 miles to collect the LWB Transit. 25 miles to Tarvin to load an already dismantled but heavy piano, redundant washer, mower bike etc. etc. and then 15 miles to a Cheshire HWRC site chosen for ease of unloading and skipping heavy items. 15 miles back to Oscroft, loaded stuff in van for eldest daughter and youngest who lives in Leigh. Drove 33 miles to Leigh, to gated alley behind youngest daughters and unloaded 2 sideboards, glass fronted book case and many items. 1 sideboard and bookcase up stairs! Freezer to kitchen etc. Collected old freezer and redundant furniture and then 40 miles back to Wales. Dropped of items for eldest and then to local tip with Youngest's stuff and some from eldest. Took van back and picked up fish and chips.

    Without tickets for Cheshire waste and local waste it would have been a nightmare instead of just 7 or 8 hours graft. 

  • Bakers2
    Bakers2 Forum Participant Posts: 8,192 ✭✭✭
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    edited October 2018 #24

    We must be very lucky in our area regarding disposable of household waste from what I'm reading on this thread.

    As far as I know no limit on visits to our tip. Very helpful staff smile, there is a height barrier and commercial restriction I believe. I think those are in place to ensure commercial folk aren't disposing on the cheap? But I don't know that for sure. We can phone the council and for a small fee, certainly less than £20, a smaller fee for one item, but more for 2nd and 3rd, but capped at about £20, the council will collect from the front of your property on a notified day. Certainly not a huge flytipping problem in our city area. Other parts of the county do get hit from time to time but tend to be commercial. 

    We also have the dingy dingy men who take scrap metal. I've not pursue that method myself.

    At present our brown bin, we have 2, are collected free of charge, fortnightly all year round. If necessary I'd happily pay a reasonable fee because transporting tree trimmings etc isn't easy and very time consuming, not to mention the fuel 😉.

    TTDA I hope your local fly tipping is resolved quickly and you have the satisfaction of reading that the perpetrators are caught and punished.

  • JVB66
    JVB66 Forum Participant Posts: 22,892
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    edited October 2018 #25

    We can use our amenity tips with a car for free as often as we want, but to have a trailer or van it requires a permit that is valid for twelve trips per year that is stamped on arrival ,the staff on one tip are very " hot"and stamp the permits with a date,two others seem more "relaxed"as we have only had ours stamped once this year ,but we now tend to use one of the more "busy"tipssurprised

  • EasyT
    EasyT Forum Participant Posts: 16,194
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    edited October 2018 #26

    At present our brown bin, we have 2, are collected free of charge, fortnightly all year round. If necessary I'd happily pay a reasonable fee because transporting tree trimmings etc isn't easy and very time consuming, not to mention the fuel 😉.

    We pay £30 a year for brown bin emptying. There are 20 collections a year but we are typically away for half of them wink

     

  • brue
    brue Forum Participant Posts: 21,176 ✭✭✭✭✭
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    edited October 2018 #27

    Our brown bin is for weekly food waste, this is free and it gets composted at high temperatures. I don't use it but it's a good facility. 

    We tend to get fly tipping locally in field gates and also litter thrown out of car windows. In our village there is a "litter" pick once year to clear things up, it's not too bad but every walk I do along a road into the village I'll probably spot a can or take away carton. Far worse in a nearby lay by, sadly.

  • SteveL
    SteveL Club Member Posts: 12,299 ✭✭✭
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    edited October 2018 #28

    At home we had to register our cars several years ago, as they were going to monitor usage and limit if excessive. However, to date they have not put in any number plate recognition, so I don't think they are actually doing any monitoring. Previously there was a permit required for a trailer, now they are allowed, although there is a very tight chicane at the entrance, which allows them to limit the size / keep a  check on what folk are bringing in.

    Where my mum used to live in Bristol they brought in registration, backed by number plate recognition, several years ago. They were very accommodating though. I phoned them when we were clearing my mums house when she went into a nursing home. They said OK to register both mine and the BIL French number plate against her address. You had to provide certain info from the council tax bill and they said they might phone her to check. Explained they could not do this, as no longer in residence, plus she would not have understood in any event. They said not to worry just bring a copy of the council tax bill plus another with her address and present them at the office if flagged by the system.

    In the event they were not required as we drove up to the entrance our number plates appeared on the screen with the words welcome and the barrier lifted.😀

  • brue
    brue Forum Participant Posts: 21,176 ✭✭✭✭✭
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    edited October 2018 #29

    Same here, we here have to register trailers, everything is monitored but they are helpful too. We pay a fee for large items collected at the road side. We also have to pay an entrance fee at our alternative site. It seems to work well. We still see rubbish thrown on the roadside as we travel around, it does get traced sometimes.

  • Extugger
    Extugger Forum Participant Posts: 1,293
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    edited October 2018 #30

    I don't understand why any additional charges are levied on a household, when surely your waste collection has been calculated in your Council Tax?

    Anyway, whilst recently on a touring holiday in Cornwall I twice came across groups of young offenders who were litter picking. I don't know if this practice is carried out nationwide, but it is a system which I applaud.

  • Takethedogalong
    Takethedogalong Forum Participant Posts: 17,031 ✭✭✭
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    edited October 2018 #31

    The rubbish has been removed today, so that was quick, 24 hours from phoning. 

    Most companies selling white goods will now collect your old washer/fridge/ freezer etc.. for a small fee. Often more convenient and cheaper than taking to tip yourself. Charities will also collect items in decent condition for those less fortunate as well. We had one collect an old but clean mattress and an armchair from us, very grateful they were, looking after those without money. We have in the past dismantled an old three seat settee. The metal was collected, the wood stoked our stove, the foam was cut up and used for dog bed pads and some and put into bin. Material was put into recycling. Building rubble is the worse, we put into sack and take to our tip in car.