There are many reasons that February tops the polls as Britain’s least favourite month: the miserable weather comes first, but litter is also high on the list. With roadside vegetation at peak dieback, the full awfulness of Britain’s litter habit is laid bare, and every road and lane shows up as an artery of discarded fast-food wrappers, cans and other assorted detritus. On top of casual littering there also seems to be an epidemic of fly-tipping which is likely to be confirmed by government figures expected next week.
Littering is a societal problem and it is largely down to us as individuals to influence friends, family and our own communities. The government can help and should be considering policies – such as printing car registrations on drive through fast food packaging – which send a clear signal about how unacceptable littering is.
Fly-tipping is a different matter and the huge illegal dumps which have been uncovered by the media, as well as the preponderance of random dumping of commercial waste across the countryside, is a direct result of regulation introduced by successive governments. The issue is not that landfill tax and other policies designed to encourage recycling and discourage landfill use are wrong, it is that they inevitably create an incentive to dump waste illegally. Without proper policing and enforcement of fly-tipping and illegal dumping, a huge waste black market has grown up and the cost of that is falling on farmers and taxpayers.
There was a recent case in Hertfordshire where two-tonne concrete blocks were moved from a gateway and 200 tonnes of waste dumped in a roadside field which left an 80-year-old farmer facing a bill of over £40,000. A crowdfunding operation has raised money for the clear-up, but the government cannot leave farmers reliant on the kindness of strangers.
Bizarrely, farmers who are victims of fly-tipping are legally responsible for clearing waste dumped on their land and if they fail to remove the waste, they can even be prosecuted by local authorities for having controlled waste on their land. This is despite the fact that most local authorities refuse to prosecute the original offence of fly-tipping. This double jeopardy has to end and responsibility for clearing up illegal dumping moved to local authorities, which might also encourage them to tackle the issue of fly-tipping in the first place.
Littering and fly-tipping are real concerns, not just for rural communities but for everyone who loves visiting the countryside. If the government is serious about tackling fly-tipping as an organised crime, there are obvious steps that it could take: proper funding of enforcement, stronger regulation of waste carriers, faster powers to shut down illegal sites, tougher sentencing, and far better coordination between the Environment Agency, police, HMRC and local authorities.
Whilst we wait to see if ministers will act on this most blatant rural priority, you can do your bit by organising a litter pick as part of the Alliance’s annual Countryside Clean Up from Friday 20 March to Monday 6 April. It might seem like a drop in the ocean of rubbish, but each of us needs to do our bit to show the way.