The year 2016 was the worst on record for incidents of fly tipping and littering in our woods, says The Woodland Trust. The charity says that it spent £42,596 clearing fly tipping – £11,236 more than 2015. Since 2010 the total cost of litter clearance – including routine litter picking and fly tipping – has risen to £1,202,508.55.
The Trust says fly tipping has slowly risen over the years, with its spending on fly tipping rising by 191 pc since 2010. Some 196 tipping incidents were recorded in England in 2016.
One of the more startling cases was at Windmill Hill near Runcorn; 280 bags of rubbish had to be collected. The items dumped includes large and bulky items such as mattresses, a fridge and garden fence panels. Nearly £6,000 a year is spent on this one woodland, with 50 sites in the Warrington and Runcorn area costing about £70,000 over four years.
Tackling fly tippers is not always easy due to the sheer amount of land that the Trust owns, and the cost of CCTV. In 2016, it were only able to take one fly tipper to court. The culprit was ordered to pay £200 compensation for dumping a coffee table, mattress, bed frame and children’s playhouse at Littlewold Plantation in Yorkshire. This is the only known instance where a fly tipper could be tracked down.
Norman Starks, Woodland Trust UK Operations Director, said: “It’s worrying to see that in a world where our woods face constant threats from disease, pests and development that we also have to deal with the actions of mindless individuals. Each year we are spending thousands of pounds clearing up other people’s waste, which could otherwise go towards creating new woods or protecting ancient woodland.
“At the end of the day fly tipping is an illegal activity, and people need to understand and remember that it has numerous implications for our woods and wildlife. We all need to care for our natural environment, or risk ruining it forever.”
Staff in the Trust’s Scottish office have also seen that even ‘green fly tipping’ has become a real issue. Near Livingstone alone, five sites have been plagued garden waste such as grass clippings, hedge trimmings, weeds and leaves.
Image courtesy of The Woodland Trust; beech, Llanidloes, Powys, mid-Wales.
