Fly-tipping is on increase in West Lothian
Work to clean up Livingston has been so successful it has led to an increase in fly-tipping, it has been claimed, with households now dumping rubbish knowing it will be picked up by the council.
Instead of going to the council’s recycling depot at Oakbank, people are dumping at sites in Craigshill and Dedridge - at some points less than a mile from the depot.
And they are adding to problems already created by “unscrupulous” businesses charging for waste disposal and then simply dumping it
“We have become a victim of our own success here,” Countryside manager Andy Johnston told Livingston South local area committee.
“There are hotspots. People know that if fly-tipping is reported it will be cleared up by the council in 48 hours so some are just taking stuff there rather than to a recycling centre.”
Clean-up staff have tried a variety of methods, including cameras, to trap the tippers, but without much success. When it’s obvious one place has become too ‘hot’ fly-tippers move on to another.
And the council are now pushing for a change in the law to help them issue fines to fly-tippers and get the problem under control.
There were just four Fixed Penalty Notices issued in Livingston South for Fly tipping and one for littering for the period of 1 April 2021 - 30 June 2021.
The council is working with the police rural crime teams and also pushing with other local authorities to make it easier to issue fines.
At the moment the council has to produce two pieces of evidence that the rubbish came from a certain individual to issue penalties.
It is campaigning for that to be reduced to one piece of evidence needed to pursue .
Asked by Councillor Moira Shemilt for the causes of fly-tipping, Mr Johnston reiterated his message about “white van man”- unscrupulous dumpers taking money from householders with promises of proper disposal then dumping on roadsides.
Mr Johnston again urged householders to check licences of anyone collecting rubbish.
He also pointed to the huge profits and the growth of criminal involvement in fly-tipping.
Where police can link tipping to criminal activity the potential fine rises from £200 to up to £40,000.
West Lothian currently has issued a £20,000 fine but this has been appealed and continues through the legal process.
The council has already been running social media campaigns against flytipping and, while the surge seen last year has mostly not been increased this year the costs remain huge, at around £54,000 a quarter to clean up across the county.
The update came as four more staff were recruited to help clear fly-tipping and cope with the demands on the service by the army of volunteer litter pickers who scour the county- now filling hundreds of bags every week.
On that good news story for the council Mr Johnston said: “We wouldn’t have managed without their help and their support is greatly appreciated by the service.”
Meanwhile the volume of rubbish bags full of litter collected by volunteers has become so large that West Lothian Council has now hired more staff to help collect them.
The success of West Lothian Litter Pickers and other voluntary groups has been widely recognised, with hundreds of bags being filled on weekend rubbish collections.
As the Local Democracy Reporting Service highlighted in June, West Lothian’s volunteer litter pickers are filling 800 bags a week.
In July West Lothian Litter pickers filled 200 bags in one day.
Council officers acknowledge they don’t have the resources to collect the amount of litter dropped- and without a change in public attitudes to littering the situation will only get worse.
Andy Johnston, countryside manager, told Bathgate local area committee that the Neighbourhood Environment Teams (NETs) had now secured £165,000 to enlarge staffing.
He said: “More funding has also been secured by the NETs team to assist in hiring additional resources to help reduce the pressures of uplifting extra bags collected by the volunteers across the county.”
An army of the general public has continued the clean ups, which first seriously got underway during the first lockdown.
Mr Johnston also revealed figures for the first quarter of the year on flytipping had shown a slight drop for the Bathgate ward over last year.
Figures for April to June this year showed 82.1 tonnes lifted at a cost to the council of just over £54,000 compared to 83.19 tonnes lifted in the same period of 2020.