The government has announced that a number of councils in England will be awarded ‘Grants’ to tackle Fly-Tipping offending through a range of projects and operations, including CCTV camera deployments in targeted hotspots.
We are passionate about assisting Local Authorities with any fly-tipping problems their area may have. Fly-tipping is a crime which poses a risk to public health and the environment and costs up to £392m a year. In 2020/21 councils dealt with 1.13 million fly-tipping incidents which was up by 16% from 2019/20. Single items, such as furniture and mattresses, accounted for 16% of total fly-tipping incidents in 2020/21, rising by 7% from the year before.
The action comes after plans to reform the waste industry were launched by the government in January. The council grants, totalling £450,000, will help fund a range of projects, such as CCTV, artificial intelligence, education, and policy development.
Our Solutions Director John Roberts recently spoke with Channel 5 news about this exciting new funding that will help clamp down on this ever-growing issue:
At Kingdom L A Support we can help local authorities with all of these projects. We have partnered with another of Kingdom’s family of companies ‘Kingdom Systems’ to offer a marketing leading CCTV and AI system which uses covert and overt CCTV cameras at hot-spot locations to help to reduce the numbers of people dumping waste illegally, while also providing further evidence to help identify those that continue to offend. These cameras come with a built in ‘AI’ and can be monitored in real-time and allows our officers to rapidly investigate.
We are also able to offer a free of charge education pack that can be provided to schools and teachers to help educate young people about the impact of litter and fly-tipping as we believe education is key to prevention. The current pack is specifically aimed at schoolchildren between 7-11 years.
To further help tackle the growing fly-tipping issues seen across the country, the government is considering measures, such as eco-design, ecolabelling and extended producer responsibility, where manufacturers are responsible for the costs of dealing with waste created by their products.
Commenting, Environment Minister, Jo Churchill said: “When it comes to fly-tipping, enough is enough. These appalling incidents cost us £392m a year and it is time to put a stop to them. I want to make sure that recycling and the correct disposal of rubbish is free, accessible, and easy for householders. No one should be tempted to fly tip or turn to waste criminals and rogue operators.”
“Furthermore, the funding that we have announced for local authorities today will help them trial innovative new projects to put a stop to fly tipping. We will learn from the successes and replicate them.”
To find out more about how Kingdom L A Support can help you and your local authority then please get in touch with us today John.Roberts@lasupport.co.uk
Quotes and figures from PSE