Your waste, your responsibility

Householders are being reminded of their duty to dispose of their waste responsibly in a new campaign to tackle flytipping.

The ‘Your Waste Your Responsibility’ campaign has been launched by Tameside Council working in partnership with Recycle for Greater Manchester.

The campaign, which supports the Council’s Our Streets initiative, highlights that leaving waste by wheelie bins and recycling banks, on the floor of communal bin areas, outside recycling centres and charity shops or anywhere that isn’t a registered waste facility is all flytipping and illegal.

Householders can also be prosecuted if someone else illegally dumps waste on their behalf – this sometimes happens when people pay for ‘man in a van’ type operators who may respond to call outs on social media to remove waste.

People are urged to instead always ensure they use a registered waste carrier. You can find a registered waste carrier on the Environment Agency’s website. Householders are responsible for checking they are registered, so always ask to see their certificate. Always get a receipt confirming what they have taken and where they have disposed of it and details of any payment made. 

Tameside Council has already this year issued over 160 fixed penalty notices and conducted six prosecutions for waste related offences.

Enforcement officers are also trialling mobile CCTV cameras in flytipping hotspots to help act as a deterrent as well as to support investigations and prosecutions following flytipping incidents.

Executive Member for Environmental Services Cllr Denise Ward said: “I know how much flytipping concerns our local communities and yet some people may not realise that they are adding to the problem when they dump rubbish by bins or pay someone to remove an old sofa without checking if they are registered.

“There is no excuse for flytipping. It is a criminal offence which brings neighbourhoods down, poses a risk to public health and the environment and drains the public purse in clean up costs.

“We have a number of strategies in place to tackle waste offences and have officers out every day investigating flytipping as well as regular days of enforcement action.

“We need local people to work with us and ensure they are disposing of their waste responsibly and I hope this campaign, alongside new measures such as the mobile CCTV cameras, will make people think twice about how they are getting rid of their waste.”

For further information see www.tameside.gov.uk/flytipping