New anti-fly tipping rules come into force

The fines, which were signed off in the Assembly on Tuesday and come into force today, Wednesday, will apply to people who handed their waste over to another person or company in the belief they would dispose of it legally, who then fly-tipped it.

Currently councils can issue fines for allowing waste to by fly-tipped, but the person the fine is issued to can refuse to pay it and ask for the matter to be dealt with in court instead – which can prove costly to the taxpayer.

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But under the new powers councils will be able to issue £300 fines to the originator of the waste, reduced to £150 if paid in 10 days.

The Argus has been fighting against the scourge of litter and fly tipping since July last year as part of its War on Litter campaign - which has been shortlisted for campaign of the year in the 2019 Wales Media Awards.

Deputy minister for housing and local government Hannah Blythyn said: “We know that over 60 per cent of fly-tipped waste comes from households.

"However, often people in these households haven’t fly-tipped the waste themselves, but they have failed to carefully check who they passed their waste to for disposal.

“We all have a responsibility to prevent our waste from getting into the wrong hands, and these regulations will provide councils and Natural Resources Wales with alternative way of tackling the issue.

“We consulted widely on these proposals and received widespread support. Local authorities who responded asked for a consistent, national approach to setting penalties and for the level of the penalty to be proportionate to the offence.

“However, we recognise that not all householders will be aware of their duty of care responsibilities and so we are developing a campaign to help people to understand their obligations.’’

A Welsh Government report said in the 2017-2018 financial year there were more than 35,000 incidents of fly-tipping in Wales, costing the taxpayer almost £2 million to clean up.

The report said: “Identifying who dumped this waste can prove difficult and there is often no traceable evidence.

“However, when evidence is found and it can be traced back to a householder, sometimes it is established the householder did not fly-tip the waste themselves but rather had not carried out the appropriate checks (their waste duty of care) and had allowed an unauthorised person to take it away.”

The War on Litter campaign is working to raise awareness of the plague of littering and fly-tipping across Gwent – as well as shining a spotlight on some of the dedicated volunteers and communities who are working to clear it up.

Although the Welsh Government report says there are “a small number” of successful prosecutions each year, councils often consider prosecutions inappropriate as they may leave the household in question with a criminal record even if they did not know the waste was going to be fly-tipped.

Also, when fines are issued by the courts they are paid to the court, while the new fines would instead by paid to Natural Resources Wales and put back into enforcement and clean-up costs.

For more information visit the War on Litter Facebook group.