Chamber and committees

Cleaning up litter and flytipping costs public bodies £53m a year, this is money that could be better spent on other services. For private landowners, ideally, we would be able to identify the individuals responsible for flytipping and make them pay for clearing it up. Where that is not possible, it is the landowner who is currently responsible. At this time particularly, we would encourage relevant public authorities to investigate flytipping on public and private land and to offer assistance where possible.

The Government is keen to ensure that local partnerships are in place, such as local groups of the Scottish Partnership Against Rural Crime, to tackle flytipping as it arises and to consider what more can be done to prevent flytipping. The Scottish Partnership Against Rural Crime, last year published its “Rural Crime Strategy 2019-2022”, which includes commitments to tackling flytipping. The partnership involves Police Scotland, Zero Waste Scotland, NFU Scotland, Scottish Land & Estates and Forestry and Land Scotland among others. There are a number of local partnerships now in place that deliver a collaborate approach to tacking flytipping.

There is a currently work underway by SEPA to check the credentials of businesses that offer waste uplifts. Through media/social media SEPA also regularly highlights the risks associated with using unregistered carriers and its link to flytipping; and emphasises householders’ duty of care to ensure that collection providers are legitimate. SEPA is using a range of tactical actions to obtain evidence to support appropriate enforcement action.