WasteSafe Services has cleared what is believed to be one of the UK’s worst ever cases of fly-tipping.
The national emergency waste collection experts were called in after 499 tonnes of material was illegally dumped on the site in Hertfordshire in just 10 days.
Among the dozens of piles of waste tipped on the site were sheets of asbestos, which had to be treated as hazardous waste.
Pop-up illegal waste site
Travellers are thought to have been responsible for the fly tipping after turning the former factory site in Hemel Hempstead into a pop-up illegal waste transfer station.
The site was broken into, then a man was seen sitting on a chair at the entrance, appearing to charge people as they drove truckloads of waste in to be dumped.
The amount of waste left illegally was greater than the “sea of rubbish” dumped just down the road in Bedfordshire, on the preferred site for the new Luton Town football stadium.
While that was built up over many months, this rubbish was dumped in less than two weeks.
Worst fly tipping case
Paul Gurr, Business Development Manager for WasteSafe Services, said: “It is the worst case of fly-tipping WasteSafe has been called in to deal with.
“The scale of it was quite amazing to see. The fly-tippers started at the back of the site and worked their way to the entrance. It was clearly co-ordinated.”
The waste included broken furniture, old kitchen units, builders’ rubble, household waste, plastic and packaging.
Emergency waste clearance operatives had to wear specialist safety clothing to protect themselves against injury and disease.
Sheets of asbestos had to be carefully picked up with an excavator and placed within a specialist skip, ready to be taken to a hazardous waste disposal site.
The fly-tipped waste, on the site of a former aerospace factory, which is due to be turned into a retail park, took four days to clear.
UK fly tipping crisis
Keep Britain Tidy has said fly-tipping is an epidemic in Britain with the problem reaching “crisis levels”. It was responding to an ITV survey which found cases of fly-tipping reported to local councils had risen by up to a fifth year-on-year in 2016.
In Haringey, north London, there were nearly 40,000 reported incidents of waste being dumped illegally between November 2015 and December 2016. In Manchester, the figure was more than 30,000, or 77 per day.
The Government has announced tougher penalties for offenders, with councils given powers to issue on-the-spot penalties of up to £400.
Penalties not a deterrence
Paul Gurr said: “It’s clear, with this case of fly-tipping, and the hundreds of others we’re called out to every year, that the penalties are not deterring the offenders.
“They can get so much money charging people to take away their rubbish, and the risk of getting caught is so low, that fly-tipping for many is big and lucrative business.”
WasteSafe Services is based in Coulsdon, South London, with branches in Birmingham, Manchester, and Edinburgh.
As well as proving a national fly tip collection service, it also carries out emergency food waste collection, clinical waste collection, waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) recycling, and construction waste collection.
