Warning over fly tipping filling Leeds streets

From 2022-2023, England saw 1.08 million incidents of fly tipping, a 1% decrease from 2021-2022.

The number of reported incidents in Leeds has decreased by 15%, but some areas in the city, particularly closer to the centre, still see high rates.

Fran Bainbridge, a teacher at Harehills Primary School said: “There is rubbish everywhere and it is shocking. When I left school today, I saw two armchairs next to a bin on the side of the road.

“I don’t think the community care that it is there. They’re not proud and they’re not looking after their area. People will look around the fly tipping to see if there’s anything they want, and the likelihood is it will get kicked around and set on fire and won’t be collected.”

Source: Toby Almond | All Rights Reserved

The most common place for fly tipping to occur is on pavements and roads which accounted for 40% of total incidents in 2022/2023.

Rural areas see less frequent incidents overall, but some individuals take advantage of the quiet nature of fields and country roads.

David Hamilton, a resident from Roundhay said: “You see builders emptying an entire van of rubble into the gateway of the field, so the farmer can’t access it, the roads aren’t used a lot so people are more likely to get away with it.”

This may be a method in which construction workers use to cut costs, instead of legally disposing their waste.

Despite Harehills being one of the worst affected areas in the city, Bainbridge said: “Every morning I see litter pickers on the roads, from the council, so they obviously know it’s an issue and are trying to help it.”

In March, Leeds City Council introduced the Leeds Accredited Waste Carrier Scheme (LAWCS) to help residents find legal and environmentally safe methods to dispose of waste.

Councillor Mohammad Rafique, executive member for energy, environment and green space said in a press release:

“With the LAWCS, we hope to shrink the marketplace for illegal waste carriers that contribute to fly tipping and make it easy for people to fulfil the duty of care to dispose of their waste correctly.

“Please think twice about just hiring anyone from social media to take away your home or garden waste.”

According to a survey from Material Focus, more than half of the services offered to remove waste, operate illegally, where they dump it on country roads and car parks.

Hiring a non-licensed waste carrier can result in receiving a fine, but the new scheme provides residents with a list of ones accredited.

Hamilton said: “I don’t think that fines are the best way to tackle fly tipping, installing cameras would possibly help catch the criminals, but ideally, you’d try to educate everyone, but that’s not realistic.” 

Currently, the council relies on litter pickers to help clean the streets and collection services to clear the larger household items.

In 2022-2023, Leeds Council issued 305 Fixed Penalty Notices in the form of fines.

10 cars involved in environmental crime have been crushed and eight people were prosecuted.

Bainbridge further commented: “I think they could have regular patrols to go round and pick up everything they see on the street, even if its once a month, but that would also encourage the community to dump even more than they already do.”