Households face postcode lottery as some local tips reopen

Local tips and recycling centres will reopen in some parts of England this weekend while others will remain closed despite a surge in fly-tipping.

Residents in Hampshire, Northumberland and Greater Manchester are among those able to clear out excess waste when refuse sites reopen – with a variety of restrictions – from tomorrow, after the government gave councils the green light. 

However, Devon and North Yorkshire locals are among many across the country who will be forced to wait after their councils refused to reopen waste centres until there is sufficient staffing and PPE for workers amid the on-going coronavirus crisis.

The decision comes amid a 300% rise in fly-tipping across the UK with crooks taking advantage of the lockdown to illegally dump waste.

Speaking to the BBC on Friday morning, Local Government Secretary Robert Jenrick, confirmed that some tips would reopen this weekend and hoped that more would do so in the coming weeks, adding it is ‘perfectly legal’ for Britons to take waste to the dump.

‘There is no reason why you cannot travel to a tip to put household waste there or do recycling. Councils should have the confidence to reopen them as soon as possible,’ he said. 

Many councils closed waste facilities because they couldn’t meet social distancing guidelines or were hit by staff absences. 

Darlington tip in County Durham, was one of the first to reopen this week, with queues of up to an hour and a half, despite the council asking people to only go if essential. 

North Yorkshire County Council said it wouldn’t be reopening its tips ‘for public safety and to cut non-essential travel’. 

While Derbyshire County Council said it couldn’t say when its services would reopen because of social distancing.

Devon County Council also said its centres were closed until further notice.

Measures being taken to help recycling centres open include authorities requiring visitors to show proof of their address in a bid to stop people travelling outside their local area. 

Greater Manchester Combined Authority are opening ‘based on odd and even number plates,’ according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

A spokeswoman for the authority said that the possibility of introducing a booking system was explored, but to implement it at short notice for 2.5 million residents would have been challenging.   

Different restrictions will be put in place at a number of tips across the country. In Hampshire there will be daily cleaning, a vehicle limit, plus reduced hours. In Northumberland, council restrictions will be placed on the number of people allowed outside vehicles. Lancashire will offer an online booking system. On the Wirral there will be one-way systems with traffic stewards and in Surrey there will be restrictions on the types of waste when its sites reopen. 

Scroll around this Google map to find your local refuse centre – and click to find out if its open or closed 

Local Government Secretary Robert Jenrick told the BBC on Friday that refuse centres could be opened in a ‘staged’ manner.

‘Obviously don’t abuse it, but we know that there’s lots of people with rubbish and recycling and boxes from all those deliveries people are getting piling up in their homes, and it’s right that we manage that and make people’s lives a bit more bearable by getting that out of the house.’

He said that, due to large demand, many councils may opt to reopen their sites in a ‘staged’ manner, adding that this is ‘sensible’ and the ‘right thing to do’.

‘The longer we delay it, the longer those queues are going to be when the waste sites reopen,’ he added.

The re-opening comes as new analysis revealed fly-tipping has increased by 300 per cent during the Covid-19 lockdown.   

Researchers from the Universities of Southampton and Portsmouth said the increase in illegal waste dumping has followed the closure of almost all tips, while at the same time the number of DIY projects has increased by householders stuck at home.

The problem has also been worsened with nearly half of all local authority recycling services in the country having been stopped or reduced, and charity shops being closed and not able to take unwanted goods.

A fly-tipping dumping ground in Wales has so much rubbish it can be seen from space. Hundreds of car tyres, piles of clothes, suitcases and doors have been scattered across the disused road off the M4 in Newport, South Wales. Newport’s landfill site is currently only open to commercial businesses.

The researchers also highlight that increased food waste is expected from the £1.9 billion worth of groceries stockpiled by panic-buyers at the start of the crisis.   

And the increase in home deliveries is leading to a shortage of cardboard as many households are unable to recycle.

The researchers also point out that the environmental impact of the closures may be worsened with valuable resources having to be extracted that would normally have come from recyclables that have now ended up in landfill.

Professor Ian Williams, of the School of Engineering at the University of Southampton, said: ‘This pandemic has been a wake-up call to governments and the waste sector to ensure that supply chains and markets for recyclates are diverse and resilient.

‘Our current waste management system will need to evolve to be resilient to the impacts of these rare, extreme, global events to create a successful circular economy.’  

The closure of a majority of tips due to the coronavirus lockdown and social distancing guidelines has resulted in a spate of fly-tipping incidents in recent weeks.

Not only is fly-tipping illegal but it also means Britons are taking on non-essential travel to dump their rubbish, breaking Government orders to remain inside, risking further spread of the virus.

Sarah Lee of the Countryside Alliance said: ‘The images of fly tipping, though horrendous, are an all too familiar sight. 

‘It shouldn’t need saying that driving to dump rubbish is not essential travel.

‘Not only are you committing an offence by littering, but you are also ignoring guidance that has been introduced to stop the spread of this dangerous virus.’

Fly tipping is defined as the illegal dumping of items.

Anyone found guilty of doing it could face a £400 fixed penalty notice or an unlimited fine.

However, according to the Countryside Alliance, only one in 600 incidents lead to a prosecution.

Between 2018 and 2019 there were more than one million instances of fly tipping in England, with clean-ups costing between £100million and £150million.

At least 18 councils across England and Wales have moved to three-weekly rubbish collections, with a handful trialling a four-weekly service. 

Just one in six councils still have weekly bin collections for non-recyclable waste.

Freedom of Information figures showed there were 1.8 million complaints last year about waste not being collected.  

Waste disposal experts BusinessWaste.co.uk warn that the collection schedules are so confusing they are a health hazard.

Their survey of 1,400 properties discovered nearly half got it wrong at least once in the last six months.

‘In many places each type of bin is only collected once a month so we could find ourselves with much bigger problems,’ said spokesman Mark Hall.

‘Piling black bags next to our jam-packed bins is a magnet for cats, foxes and rats and many authorities will refuse to collect extra bags.’