Fines for illegal dumping decreased over past year with only 0.2% of incidents resulting in court action

Fly-tipping incidents across England have reached the highest level since current records began, with most offences continuing to involve household waste.

In 2024-25, 1.26m fly-tipping incidents were recorded by local authorities, an increase of 9% on the 1.15m reported in the year before, according to data released by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) on Wednesday.

This data does not include the 98 incidents of large-scale, illegal dumping dealt with by the Environment Agency, or those cleared by private landowners.

    • GreyShuck@feddit.ukOPMEnglish
      3·
      3 days ago

      Usually it is just individuals or people from small businesses that tip rubbish somewhere they are not allowed to and then ‘fly’ from the scene: just leave it and run. This is usually so that they don’t have to pay to dispose of it - but sometimes just because they can’t be arsed to go to the actual waste disposal site.

      Increasingly, criminal organisations are finding that they can make money from this: charging businesses for the disposal but then just dumping it, sometimes in enormous quantities.

      It is only very recently that I realised that fly-tipping is not a widely used term outside the UK. I know that this also occurs in other countries, but I don’t know what it is called elsewhere.

      • Notyou@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        4·
        3 days ago

        I believe it’s called illegal dumping in the US. We have signs up in places. Some people take photos of themselves pretending to shit next to the signs.