West Country councils say rise in fly-tipping is 'a worry'

Councils across the West Country are facing some of their biggest waste management challenges since the outbreak of coronavirus.

Many local authorities have seen a rise in the number of fly tipping incidents since household recycling centres were shut.

Others are seeing a reduction in the number of people able to collect our waste because they are in isolation.

Cotswold District Council says it has seen an increase in fly-tipping along with Cornwall Council and South Gloucestershire Council.

This coincides with some councils having to reduce certain waste services, such as garden waste collections, as a result of many waste collection staff needing to self-isolate or to recover from illness.

At Cotswold District Council its waste collection crews are 20% down.

Councils have also closed recycling centres as part of social distancing measures to discourage non-essential travel.

Many people have left their rubbish outside the sites instead.

A spokesperson for South Gloucestershire Council said: “This is a challenging situation but we are doing everything we can to maintain essential waste collections during the Coronavirus outbreak while protecting our staff and residents.

“We appreciate that with more people at home there will be an increase in household waste and recycling. We will not be able to collect additional bags of non-recyclable waste and we encourage people to re-use items where possible and to compost their green waste.

“Fly tipping blights communities and is illegal. We have a zero tolerance approach to fly tipping and we encourage anyone who has information relating to the illegal dumping of rubbish to report it to our Envirocrime team.