Litter and fly-tipping in England

[alex397]

I travel frequently around the UK and Europe. The UK appears to be a nation of littering and fly tipping. I have never visited anywhere quite as bad as the UK for this. Maybe there are other countries as bad as this in Europe, but I’ve yet to see them myself.

To give some examples, the roads around Kent are atrocious. There are some parts where the plastic rubbish has a higher ratio than anything living, particularly around areas that lorries park. I’ve complained to the local authorities about this, but the replies vary from ‘it’s too dangerous to pick up without closing the road’ to ‘it’s someone’s else’s problem’ (paraphrasing!)

I visited Sheffield recently, which in my opinion is an underrated great city, with lots to offer and friendly residents, but I had a river walk along the River Don. I’ve never seen anything so disgusting in all my travels across Europe, even in countries much poorer than the UK. The river was full of building waste, sofas, shopping trolleys, traffic cones, and there seemed to be a lot of oil / pollution.

My question is - why is the UK so different to the rest of Europe (at least to the places I’ve visited) in terms of litter and flytipping? Why is the UK such a tip?!? It’s beyond a minor annoyance, it’s something that actually upsets and angers me. This country has a lot to offer but we seem to ruin it with all the rubbish we leave everywhere.

Is it a cultural thing? Do Brits not care about the environment? Or is it an economical thing? Are we so poor that we can’t afford decent environmental protection?

 

[lookapigeon]

Probably a bit of everything that makes it so.

- For the large items people find a man with a van on facebook/gumtree etc doing waste clearance, paid them a fee, the man pockets said fee and leaves the rubbish down a country lane.
- Councils charge or are just difficult for collecting bulky items, and people can be lazy / are transient, or just don't care. Someone else's problem etc.
- Councils have hacked back the facilities for which to dispose of items. For example, our local council got rid of ALL the litter bins in the carparks, presumably to save on costs, funny how the councl tax never got reduced, it's England all over really, pay more for less service or quality. The same council also removed all recycling banks in the car parks.
- There is overconsumption, people have a need and want for stuff. The lazy will just dump it anywhere there is an empty space.
- There is a lack of civic duty or pride in the local area.
- There's no social stigma to littering, whilst it is frowned upon, it's never a big thing. You'll definitely know you've taken chewing gum into Singapore.

 

[alex397]

Probably a bit of everything that makes it so.

- For the large items people find a man with a van on facebook/gumtree etc doing waste clearance, paid them a fee, the man pockets said fee and leaves the rubbish down a country lane.
- Councils charge or are just difficult for collecting bulky items, and people can be lazy / are transient, or just don't care. Someone else's problem etc.
- Councils have hacked back the facilities for which to dispose of items. For example, our local council got rid of ALL the litter bins in the carparks, presumably to save on costs, funny how the councl tax never got reduced, it's England all over really, pay more for less service or quality. The same council also removed all recycling banks in the car parks.
- There is overconsumption, people have a need and want for stuff. The lazy will just dump it anywhere there is an empty space.
- There is a lack of civic duty or pride in the local area.
- There's no social stigma to littering, whilst it is frowned upon, it's never a big thing. You'll definitely know you've taken chewing gum into Singapore.

I think I’d agree with most of this. Especially with the lack of civic pride. Most Brits don’t seem to care, and have a ‘it’s someone else’s problem’ and ‘I’m more important’ kind of arrogant attitude. Quite contrasting when I’ve visited Czechia, Slovakia, Poland etc where it seems people do still seem to care.

 

[philthetube]

All prosecuted fly tipping offences ought to include a period of time spent clearing rubbish as part of the sentemce.

 

[Bikeman78]

I think I’d agree with most of this. Especially with the lack of civic pride. Most Brits don’t seem to care, and have a ‘it’s someone else’s problem’ and ‘I’m more important’ kind of vile attitude. Quite contrasting when I’ve costed Czechia, Slovakia, Poland etc where it seems people do still seem to care.

The councils don't care either. They will spend far more time and effort saying that a problem doesn't actually exist than actually solve it. Or claim that they have fixed it when they haven't. I cannot think of anything that has actually been resolved in Cardiff. If I report a blocked drain, after a few weeks of nagging, they claim that someone had been round and pumped it out. This is never true. Do they think I won't check? What are the people that claim to be pumping out drains really doing? As regards litter, no chance the council will pick it up. I just do it myself near my house.

 

[dangie]

All prosecuted fly tipping offences ought to include a period of time spent clearing rubbish as part of the sentence.

That would be deemed too embarrassing for the culprits and against their human rights.
I agree with what you say.

 

[DerekC]

That would be deemed too embarrassing for the culprits and against their human rights.

I agree with rubbish clearing being the appropriate punishment for litter clearing, but I suspect that safety would be the real problem and if that's a human right, so it should be. I have organised/participated in volunteer litter picks alongside a rural "A" road with a 60mph speed limit. The council refused officially to have anything to do with it (other than accepting the bags at the local tip) because they said it was inherently unsafe. It was quite scary at times, even though I managed to unofficially borrow some warning signs from the local Highways Depot and all wore Hi-Vis. As usual 95% of drivers behaved perfectly, slowing down and giving us a wide berth, but the odd 5% kept bashing on at or over the speed limit within a couple of feet of people on the verge. We didn't lose anybody, but it does make the point for me that if you were making people do it, you would probably need traffic lights and one-way flow plus a speed restriction, so it would be disruptive and cost a lot. And what you pick up is often disgusting. Plastic bottles of yellow fluid anywhere and bags of brown stuff near laybys (I guess the unbagged stuff just rots). So you need good protective gear too. And please don't tell me "it's health and safety gone mad" because it isn't.

 

[Oxfordblues]

I travelled last month from Tangier to Rabat and back on the Moroccan Railways' wonderful TGVs on the high-speed line and my abiding impression was of a national crisis in waste management. Every farm track and the edges of every field were piled with domestic rubbish, building materials and miscellaneous detritus. Otherwise delightful rural vistas from the train were degraded by the sheer volume if fly-tipped debris.

 

[styles]

Personally, I think a mix of it being self-fulfilling, and at least my perception that people are becoming more selfish and entitled.

I've done litter picks organised by national park rangers and their authorities before now. All the popular ones experience problems, particularly south of the border, though I do believe Snowdonia may be the worst. Did a litter pick up the watkin path one weekend and around the fairy pools, you would find the most disgusting stuff - people clearly got caught out needing a poo, wiped themselves "clean" with a £15 Mountain Warehouse fleece, then just tossed the used fleece into the ferns. Most people appear to have the common sense to take wet wipes, but then also throw then into the long grass instead of taking them out in a bag. We've come across full-sized gas/coal BBQs before now, abandoned along with unopened cans of pop, crisps, etc before now. Wouldn't mind but often they're right next to car parks with decent waste facilities. You end up driving round the national park picking up bulky waste like discarded cheap tents and BBQs and it just feels absurd. Come all this way to a beauty spot, where you can take in the scenery while you have your tea, then just abandon your stuff. And yes, you can tell when it's someone who's simply dumped it, and someone who's gone for a walk and got lost or is despondent; you have sympathy for the latter.

The thing is, the more litter there is around, the more acceptable people deem it. Keeping on top of it is just an endless task unfortunately to clear it up for a sufficient period of time so as to make it unacceptable.

In the fairy pools example, these sorts of things I find are increasingly the result of people going to the Instagrammable spots they've seen on short reels. You only need to look at the parking situation around Mam Tor and emergency services struggling to get through to realise that many (not all of course) of these people piling onto the same one hill for sunrise simply do not care about anything but themselves and their Instagram stories.

On the watkin path litter pick we stopped for a brownie and brew break on a rock, just next to a bend in the clearly marked footpath. The bend adds around 1 minute onto the walk compared to walking as the crow flies. There is a fence, which has been broken, and people are trampling their own new walking route as the crow flies. The National Trust have put up a sign asking people to stick to the footpath to the left, as the more direct route has some delicate habitats they're trying to protect. While we were sat having our lunch, with staff from the national park, a number of people blatently looked at the sign and ignored it, and in fact one bloke set the fantastic example to his (presumably) daughter by telling the national park lass to shut up and walked straight through. The young girl thankfully stook to the footpath, and as you might guess, although he got to the other end of the bend quicker, he had to stand and wait for his daughter to catch up anyway.

So unfortunately I have to put a lot of this down to people being selfish, entitled, and following what other people do.

It is worth highlighting that these are a minority of people though, both in urban and in rural settings.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 4 Mar 2025 ==

I travelled last month from Tangier to Rabat and back on the Moroccan Railways' wonderful TGVs on the high-speed line and my abiding impression was of a national crisis in waste management. Every farm track and the edges of every field were piled with domestic rubbish, building materials and miscellaneous detritus. Otherwise delightful rural vistas from the train were degraded by the sheer volume if fly-tipped debris.

Indeed. Shame as well, as the larger stations are absolutely stunning, and the trains themselves very comfortable and tidy.

The worst rail journeys I've had litter-wise have to be India (in general, though 1AC/2AC are usually kept clean and tidy), and late night UK trains which haven't had a cleaning crew for a few hours, especially on match/event days.

 

[Gloster]

For the last few years the camping fields used by those attending the Isle of Wight Festival are covered with abandoned tents and equipment when the festival ends. This isn’t just cheap supermarket stuff as there is plenty of quite good quality equipment. The festival has said at times that they will collect the left-behind tents and so on and send them to good causes, but much of the stuff was left in such an appalling state that, I believe, it has become too labour intensive to check things over.

 

[styles]

For the last few years the camping fields used by those attending the Isle of Wight Festival are covered with abandoned tents and equipment when the festival ends. This isn’t just cheap supermarket stuff as there is plenty of quite good quality equipment. The festival has said at times that they will collect the left-behind tents and so on and send them to good causes, but much of the stuff was left in such an appalling state that, I believe, it has become too labour intensive to check things over.

Yeah there's a few destivals dotted around where at the end they open it up to homeless charities, scout groups, etc to come and collect what they can. Like you say though, some stuff is wrecked. Throwaway society - if it lasts the weekend, it's job done.

 

[dangie]

I agree with rubbish clearing being the appropriate punishment for litter clearing, but I suspect that safety would be the real problem and if that's a human right, so it should be....

I agree with this, but there must be many areas where there is little danger to health, where litter perpetrators could safely go about the business of clearing up both their's & others mess.

 

[KT550]

I often walk between stations in rural areas on my version of "All The Stations".
The amount of litter is truly shocking.

It must be thrown from vehicles. No "normals" would walk those routes and there are no houses nearby to explain wind blown litter from bins or collection vehicles.

 

[Bald Rick]

Littering is absolutely brainless, and people who do it are complete and utter idiots* of the highest order. (If anyone reading this who litters in that way disagrees, let’s meet so I can out you straight).

I have resolved to myself that when I see someone throwing litter out of their car on my road, I shall find out where they live, and empty my bin on their front doorstep. Fortunately for them (and there must be many, given how many cans, bottles and fast food containers I pick up) I haven’t seen them doing it yet.

What really gets me is people who throw out a small plastic bag full of rubbish - almost as if they’ve gone to the trouble of collecting their rubbish, then decided to drive down my road to drop it off, rather than put it in their own bin, or even the public litter bin 100 metres away.

* word edited to something more acceptable on a family forum.

 

[telstarbox]

Our road is probably in the middle of the rough - posh scale but has a lot of broken glass (no idea where this comes from) and dog mess (more obvious). To the council's credit if you report via their app they will clear it the same day, but it's avoidable by people taking a bit of care!

 

[Kite159]

As for fly tipping, some of the blame can be put onto councils who still think it's 2020 and have a booking system if you want to visit the local dump to dispose of your old things, or have restricted opening hours.

As for litterers, they are prats of the highest order who have no respect for the environment

 

[Yew]

I'm going to focus on the fly tipping side, as it is the more interesting issue rather that all of these unsubstantiated claims that "people are worse and more selfish now"

Probably a bit of everything that makes it so.

- For the large items people find a man with a van on facebook/gumtree etc doing waste clearance, paid them a fee, the man pockets said fee and leaves the rubbish down a country lane.
- Councils charge or are just difficult for collecting bulky items, and people can be lazy / are transient, or just don't care. Someone else's problem etc.

I think these points hit the nail on the head, Council facilities are underfunded, and often don't do pickups. If you pay someone to pick up eligible domestic waste in a van, then we have the ludicrous usually tips won't let them dispose of it, as somehow your domestic fridge-freezer has magically become commercial waste.

Similarly, we have the silly situation where it's fine for a person to go to a tip in a car, however the same items would be forbidden if they have a van. Not just if it's a works van, but if they're an outdoorsy type that owns it to put sports equipment in.


Overall, it feels like there are some much more straightforward solutions, that would actually work to reduce fly tipping, and ensure the council isn't disposing of commercial waste that it shouldn't be - compared to this "no Vans" rule that clearly isn't working.

 

[Harpo]

As for fly tipping, some of the blame can be put onto councils who still think it's 2020 and have a booking system if you want to visit the local dump to dispose of your old things, or have restricted opening hours.

With our local authority bled out by central funding reductions for over a decade, it recently imposed county residency restrictions and ID requirements on use of recycling centres. The result has been a 20% increase in fly tipping.

 

[Dr Day]

I don’t think any of the issues raised are unique to England! Wales, Scotland and my limited experience of Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland are similar.

It probably doesn’t help that we aren’t allowed to have bonfires any more (generally for good reasons) and much of the stuff we want to get rid of is plastic rather than say wood which would ultimately rot.

 

[ChrisC]

With our local authority bled out by central funding reductions for over a decade, it recently imposed county residency restrictions and ID requirements on use of recycling centres. The result has been a 20% increase in fly tipping.

It’s the same around here. You have to be resident in the authority and your car needs to be registered. If you live in the City of Nottingham you can’t use recycling centres outside of the city boundary in the County of Nottinghamshire and vice versa. People who live in one of the many towns along the Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire border can’t use a centre in the neighbouring county even if it’s your nearest centre. The use of recycling centres should be made as easy as possible to encourage the disposal of rubbish not with all these restrictions. If people could use their nearest or most convenient centre, regardless of which local authority, fly tipping may be reduced. It doesn’t make to have to drive large distances to a centre in your own authority if there is one close by just over the boundary.

 

[DarloRich]

It doesn't help that local council budgets have been gutted by successive Tory governments!

As for booking your tip slot it has actually been a positive round my way. Before appointments the queue for the tip would stretch down the road and it wasn't unknown to sit for 20 minutes waiting to get in. That blocked the main road and access to the other businesses in the area.

Now you drive up, unload and leave easily.

 

[Yew]

It’s the same around here. You have to be resident in the authority and your car needs to be registered. If you live in the City of Nottingham you can’t use recycling centres outside of the city boundary in the County of Nottinghamshire and vice versa. People who live in one of the many towns along the Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire border can’t use a centre in the neighbouring county even if it’s your nearest centre. The use of recycling centres should be made as easy as possible to encourage the disposal of rubbish not with all these restrictions. If people could use their nearest or most convenient centre, regardless of which local authority, fly tipping may be reduced. It doesn’t make to have to drive large distances to a centre in your own authority if there is one close by just over the boundary.

This feels like the sort of thing that in most cases will just average out, and adds additional bureaucracy to the process.

 

[styles]

With our local authority bled out by central funding reductions for over a decade, it recently imposed county residency restrictions and ID requirements on use of recycling centres. The result has been a 20% increase in fly tipping.

It more surely cost them more in the long run to go around clearing up fly-tipping? More staff, more vehicles, more fuel, and of course you still need to separate it as well. Not to mention the cost of administering a booking/vehicle registration/ID system.

 

[WelshBluebird]

funny how the councl tax never got reduced, it's England all over really, pay more for less service or quality

It's worth remembering that as a few other comments have noted already, council funding has had massive cuts since 2010.

So yes council tax itself has increased, but not enough to make up for the central government funding that's been cut. So we are paying more council tax, but the councils get less revenue overall.

Add that to general inflation making everything more expensive and specific services needing more money than before (SEND and adult social care are two examples), we end up here with councils basically having to manage having much less money available for the same services.

 

[PeterC]

It's nothing new. I recall two local press stories from over 30 years ago.

1. A man in a better off part of town actually drove past the council tip to fly tip in a communal green space in a council estate.

2. Resident in a well off area along the Thames thought it "common" to have bin bags at their front gates and would leave them outside Council houses on bin day.

 

[styles]

2. Resident in a well off area along the Thames thought it "common" to have bin bags at their front gates and would leave them outside Council houses on bin day.

When I lived in London a few years ago, this was indeed the way we put the bins out. Just chuck the bin bags onto the pavement, and hope the bin lorries got to them before the foxes. The bin lorries did come round at maybe 1am, so they did actually manage to beat the foxes a lot of the time.

I always thought that the sight of bin bags on the pavement practically all day every day (as businesses would be having waste collected daily) itself encouraged littering. You'd often see people dumping their friend chicken bones and empty drinks bottles on top of the bin bags, as if it was a general rubbish pile. Wouldn't mind, but I lived central and we had bins like every 30 metres which were emptied frequently throughout the day so didn't overflow.

 

[Bikeman78]

I agree with rubbish clearing being the appropriate punishment for litter clearing, but I suspect that safety would be the real problem and if that's a human right, so it should be. I have organised/participated in volunteer litter picks alongside a rural "A" road with a 60mph speed limit. The council refused officially to have anything to do with it (other than accepting the bags at the local tip) because they said it was inherently unsafe. It was quite scary at times, even though I managed to unofficially borrow some warning signs from the local Highways Depot and all wore Hi-Vis. As usual 95% of drivers behaved perfectly, slowing down and giving us a wide berth, but the odd 5% kept bashing on at or over the speed limit within a couple of feet of people on the verge. We didn't lose anybody, but it does make the point for me that if you were making people do it, you would probably need traffic lights and one-way flow plus a speed restriction, so it would be disruptive and cost a lot. And what you pick up is often disgusting. Plastic bottles of yellow fluid anywhere and bags of brown stuff near laybys (I guess the unbagged stuff just rots). So you need good protective gear too. And please don't tell me "it's health and safety gone mad" because it isn't.

There must be thousands of miles of urban streets with pavements where offenders could pick up litter. No need to go anywhere near A roads in the countryside.

 

[WelshBluebird]

When I lived in London a few years ago, this was indeed the way we put the bins out. Just chuck the bin bags onto the pavement, and hope the bin lorries got to them before the foxes. The bin lorries did come round at maybe 1am, so they did actually manage to beat the foxes a lot of the time.

Putting bags outside as you describe is standard across much of the country, though many areas have now moved to wheelie bins instead because of some of the issues you've raised.

But I think the point being made by the person you quoted was that some people were putting their bags outside other people's houses away from theirs to make their own property look nicer. I don't think that is common or expected!

 

[Bikeman78]

Overall, it feels like there are some much more straightforward solutions, that would actually work to reduce fly tipping, and ensure the council isn't disposing of commercial waste that it shouldn't be - compared to this "no Vans" rule that clearly isn't working.

What is defined as commercial waste? If I have a builder in to do some work, is the rubble commercial waste? If so, where are they supposed to take it?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Mar 2025 ==

With our local authority bled out by central funding reductions for over a decade, it recently imposed county residency restrictions and ID requirements on use of recycling centres. The result has been a 20% increase in fly tipping.

This sort of thing is ridiculous. People should be able to take stuff to the nearest tip, irrespective of council boundaries. Making them driver further causes more pollution and, as you say, encourages people to dump stuff illegally instead.

 

[Robin Edwards]

I travelled last month from Tangier to Rabat and back on the Moroccan Railways' wonderful TGVs on the high-speed line and my abiding impression was of a national crisis in waste management. Every farm track and the edges of every field were piled with domestic rubbish, building materials and miscellaneous detritus. Otherwise delightful rural vistas from the train were degraded by the sheer volume if fly-tipped debris.

In southern Morocco where the high Saharan dunes start, plastic is seen en-mass on the winds that carry those bags far and wide and at some altitude. You think there's a bird high in the blue sky but it's another bag travelling across the desert.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Mar 2025 ==

A thread I feel drawn to as I live in a village frequented by lots of visitors in good weather and one which 'collects' much detritus wherever people are present. Roadsides, cycle tracks, footpaths and river banks. I have often said that in the UK we British seem content with the toilet we have created since so few are willing to pick anything up. I work on the basis that if I see some rubbish that p***es me off, I pick it up however my observation would be that most people don't feel unhappy about it nor that it's their responsibility to do something about it. I do regular local litter picks and some people chose to give me abuse. Bizarre evidence that some people don't like 'do-gooders'?

I have also noted along railway lines where people don't walk and there are no adjacent roads or paths, there is still a collection of debris. Bottles, cans food bags etc. Next time you're stopped at a red signal, take a look and wonder how on earth this got there when there are no opening windows on passenger trains?