London, UK — For the 2015/16 year, UK local authorities dealt with 936 thousand fly-tipping incidents, a 4.0 per cent increase over 2014/15. Just over two thirds (67 per cent) of fly-tips involved household waste, an increase of 6.5 per cent from 2014/15. Consistent with previous years, the most common place for fly-tipping to occur was on highways, which accounted for 50 per cent of total incidents in 2015/16, a 7.9 per cent increase on 2014/15, the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs reports.
Other key figures indicate:
- Incidents of fly-tipping on footpaths and bridleways increased by 8.0 per cent in England in 2015/16 whilst those in back alleyways decreased by 6.7 per cent compared to 2014/15.
- A third of all incidents consisted of a quantity of material equivalent to a ‘small van load’. The second largest size category for fly-tipping incidents was a ‘car boot’, which accounted for 29 per cent of total incidents by size. These findings are also consistent with the 2014/15 year.
- The estimated cost of clearance for fly-tipping to local authorities in England in 2015/16 was £49.8 million.
- Local authorities carried out 494 thousand enforcement actions in 2015/16 at an estimated cost of £16.9 million, nearly £700 thousand decrease on 2014/15.
Data for each local authority, plus a time series for total incidents for each local authority, is available in a dataset under gov.uk.
Source: Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
