A Fine Waste of Time: Less than 1 in 100 Fly Tippers Pay a Fine

Following a recent change in legislation, councils across England have been increasing their maximum fixed penalty fines for fly tipping. However, analysis by LoveJunk.com reveals these increases are unlikely to have any impact as less than 1 in 100 fly tipping incidents results in a council fine that gets paid.

According to the Department for the Environment and Rural Affairs, councils in England suffered a total of 1,082,673 fly tipping incidents in 2023. To help reduce this illegal dumping, the Government recently changed the maximum on-the-spot fine that a council could set for fly tipping offences from £400 to £1000. As a result, many councils have been announcing a shift to the new maximum.

However, analysis of DEFRA’s data by rubbish removal marketplace LoveJunk suggests these increases will have little effect. LoveJunk found that in 2023 councils in England issued a total of 73,316 fly tipping FPNs, which was equivalent to 7% of all fly tip incidents. Only 13% of those FPNs were ever paid.

“Tracking down offenders and then enforcing payment is challenging and expensive. So, increasing the maximum penalty by a few hundred pounds is unlikely to change anything,” says LoveJunk’s founder, Jason Mohr.

“The simplest way to reduce fly tipping is to stop giving rubbish to fly tippers. And the easiest way to do that, is for people to only use a licensed waste carrier and never pay for the service with cash. Ensuring a waste collector is registered with the Environment Agency and paying for your collection by card means there is a clear money trail to a registered entity. This makes it almost impossible for illegal operators to remain anonymous and without anonymity fly tippers cannot survive.”

LoveJunk is an online marketplace for licensed rubbish removal. Their app has over 100,000 downloads and is recommended widely by councils. Learn more at www.lovejunk.com.

See full report, including council by council analysis at https://www.lovejunk.com/fly-tipping-report/
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All media enquiries: Rachel Corcoran @ Lily Pad PR rachel.corcoran@lilypadpr.co.uk 07791 110910