Fears Glasgow's fly-tipping will rise as fines drop

Figures seen by the Glasgow Times show an overall rise in the amount of bulk uplift collected prior to the pandemic, while the number of fines handed out for illegally disposing of waste has fallen.

Opposition councillors insist the lack of punishment for those dumping rubbish will encourage others to follow suit rather than pay the newly introduced bulk uplift toll.

It comes after the council introduced a £35 bulk uplift charge with a fee of £71.50 per half-hour needed to collect special items.

READ MORE: Glasgow City Council slammed for flytipping in Haghill

Hundreds have backed calls from Labour and Conservative politicians to scrap the fee, despite the city being one of the last in the country to adopt the approach.

A spokesman for Glasgow’s Labour group said: “People are already fly-tipping and we know it’s a problem for the city which costs Glasgow City Council a fair bit.

“However, the lack of penalties proves it’s fairly easy to get away with and, as bulk uplift collections rise, it’s a worry that people may turn to dumping rubbish rather than pay for the council to pick it up.

“COP26 is just around the corner and the fly-tipping issue is still a concern.”The number of fixed penalty notices (FPNs) issued for fly-tipping across Glasgow has dropped over the last five years.

Data shows there were 486 fines issues in 2016/17; 295 in 2017/18; and just 150 in 2018/19 - despite figures revealing more than 103,000 fly-tipping cases reported from 2016 to date.

There were only 94 handed out in 2019/20 and just 26 have been issued in 2020/21, however, the coronavirus pandemic has played a part in the low figures with a reduction in the number of council staff on the streets during various lockdowns.

Meanwhile, the tonnage of bulk uplift collections has steadily increased.

READ MORE: Glasgow M8 Blochairn fly-dumping ground warning over fire fears

In 2016/17 there were 13,513 tonnes of waste picked up, which increased to 14,046 in 2017/18 and 15,418 the following year.

By, 2019/20 the figures had peaked at 16,629 before falling sharply to 8,750 tonnes in 2020/21amid the service being suspended as Glasgow City Council tried to cope with Covid-19.

From the beginning of records in 2021 to June this year, a total of 3,503 tonnes had been collected.

A spokesman for Glasgow City Council said: “It is not sensible to try and draw conclusions from a comparison between these two unrelated data sets.

“Apart from one set of figures showing a 23% increase while the other indicates an 80% decrease, both data sets provide raw numbers offering only a general examination of two distinct systems.

“The figures on fixed penalty notices for fly-tipping give no information on the social background or circumstances of those who have been fined or why those individuals chose to commit an environmental crime.

“Nor do they take any account of the specific challenges faced by environmental health staff when seeking evidence that can lead to enforcement action in each individual case.

“As agreed by all political parties, the basic aim of our waste management strategy is to reduce how much waste is produced by the city but also increase the amount of waste that is re-used or recycled.

“Since the start of the pandemic almost all housing associations have agreed to remove large items on behalf of their tenants in return for free disposal at our waste centres, which has contributed greatly to an increase in how much bulk waste is being recycled.

“Greater use of our household waste recycling centres has improved recycling rates for bulky waste as did the introduction of an appointment system for bulk uplifts, which helped improve the separation of waste before being sent to specialist processors.

“One of the aims of charging to collect bulk items is to drive an increase in the re-use and recycling of large unwanted items and we are seeing people looking at alternative, appropriate  means of disposal rather than request a bulk uplift.”