Rubbish traced to owner
MAN CLAIMS HE PAID SCRAP DEALER TO DISPOSE OF HOUSEHOLD WASTE
A man has been fined almost £100 after rubbish he paid a scrap dealer £20 to dispose of was found dumped in a Sunderland street.
The Castletown resident was ordered to pay £95 and issued with a formal warning when the items were discovered across the other side of the River Wear in Millfield.
Split bags of wood, window frames and other general household waste were found on land off Deptford Terrace by Fly-Tip Investigation Officers on one of their routine patrols.
After evidence linked these back to an address in Castletown, the householder was formally interviewed under caution. He said he had paid a scrap dealer, who visited his property asking for an old metal bed frame from the garden and offered to take away between four and six bags of general house- hold waste for £20 while he was there.
But when asked about the waste contractor and what checks he made about how the waste was to be disposed of, he said he had no idea who the scrap dealer was, nor did he make any checks about the contractor or how he planned to dispose of the waste.
Councillor Michael Mordey, deputy leader of Sunderland City Council, said: “Householders have a legal ‘Duty of Care’ to ensure that their waste is disposed of lawfully and failure to do so is an offence.
“Waste collected by unlicensed waste carriers often ends up being fly-tipped around the city, blighting local communities.”
The Echo’s Clean Streets campaign is asking all Wearsiders to be more responsible for their own waste.