The illegal dumping of waste is repeatedly taking place throughout Leeds and happening more each year.
The Data Government website reveals that Leeds City Council are not chasing up fines from fly tippers, they’re going as far as handing the notices out and leaving it at that.
The data covers years from 2013 till 2021 and shows that across the nine years the number of fly tipping’s have increased from there being 16 fines handed out in 2012/13 to it adding up to 146 more by 2020/21 as in that year 162 fines were handed out.
The difference between the fines handed out to fines paid each year doesn’t show a pattern and so the data is unpredictable to whether people will pay the fines they’re given or not.
Kane Johnson, the operations manager from Rubbish Removers Leeds explains that since COVID19, the amount of fly tipping taking place has increased and he says that the council not chasing up the fines are “the reason why its getting worse”.
He carries on to say that he thinks a big impact on people dumping their unwanted rubbish on the streets is due to “the cost of the world going absolutely insane” meaning that the cost of throwing away rubbish legally “is also going through the roof.
Johnson says that this has led people who desperately need to throw rubbish away and aren’t getting caught for it aren’t going to stop and that a way that we can stop fly tipping is by “punishing people properly for it.” The public are leaving their waste in unmonitored areas such as farm lands and country road.
A campaign on twitter called ‘Stop Leeds fly tipping’ are continuously posting updates on the amount of fly tipping being spread across the streets, fields and backstreets of Leeds.
Not only are the campaigners raising the awareness throughout their social media they’re also giving out advice to the general public on how to manage their waste.
On social media platforms there are constant tweets either reporting or complaining about the volume of waste building up on their streets. There have been aimed posts to Leeds City Council about the matter and about bins services being improved to stop this continuing.
Alannah Glover spoke about this issue as she lives in Hyde Park, Leeds and she says her house is “always surrounded by rubbish, dumped house hold items and toys”. Glover goes on to say how the rubbish causes eye pollution for not only her but anyone near the area. She speaks about how she works full time to afford her house to keep it looking nice and she says it gets “thrown back in my face when they dump what they don’t want” outside her property.
Glover has lived in her house in Leeds for two years now and says that people fly tipping has always been a norm in her area she explained “I don’t know any different now then waking up to something new being abandoned outside my home.”
The illegal dumping of rubbish is impacting the levels of climate change. This is due to things being left behind without being recycled causing them to end up in landfill which overall will affect the environment.
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