1 in 10 householders in London is a fly tipper
Rubbish is fly tipped in London about one thousand times every day. Each year that is equivalent to more than one fly tipping incident for every 10 London homes, according to analysis released today by waste removal marketplace, LoveJunk.com. Which means that, assuming you aren’t doing any fly tipping yourself, on average one in nine of your neighbours is a fly tipper!
Rubbish is fly tipped in London about one thousand times every day. Each year that is equivalent to more than one fly tipping incident for every 10 London homes, according to analysis released today by waste removal marketplace, LoveJunk.com. Which means that, assuming you aren’t doing any fly tipping yourself, on average one in nine of your neighbours is a fly tipper!
Fly tipping is 300% worse in London than the rest of the country
LoveJunk compared latest ONS household figures for England with fly tipping data statistics from the Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs in 2020. Of nearly 1 million reported incidents, more than one in three (or 360,000) occurred in London. Dividing annual fly tipping incidents by number of households in each region to compare relative performance and it’s clear London faces by far the biggest challenge. It has 11 fly tips per 100 homes, compared to a national average of just 3. In other words, fly tipping in London is over 300% worse than the rest of the country.
[shaded map of England regions' fly tipping rates per 100 households]
LoveJunk compared latest ONS household figures for England with fly tipping data statistics from the Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs in 2020. Of nearly 1 million reported incidents, more than one in three (or 360,000) occurred in London. Dividing annual fly tipping incidents by number of households in each region to compare relative performance and it’s clear London faces by far the biggest challenge. It has 11 fly tips per 100 homes, compared to a national average of just 3. In other words, fly tipping in London is over 300% worse than the rest of the country.
[shaded map of England regions' fly tipping rates per 100 households]
Islington comes out best smelling of roses
At a local level however, the story is more complex. Annual rates of fly tipping per household vary widely by borough. The shaded map below shows this graphically.
[shaded map of London boroughs' fly tipping rates per 100 households]
At a local level however, the story is more complex. Annual rates of fly tipping per household vary widely by borough. The shaded map below shows this graphically.
[shaded map of London boroughs' fly tipping rates per 100 households]
Islington tops the list of cleanest boroughs with only 2 fly tips (1.6 to be precise) per 100 households. It is closely followed by the boroughs of Bromley, Barnet, Kingston and Bexley who all have very low fly tipping rates. At the other end of scale, the five London boroughs with the biggest problem appear to be Brent, Camden, Haringey, Hounslow and Redbridge. Together they accounted for more than one third of all fly tipping reported in London in 2020.
Council bulky waste collection charges do not affect fly tipping
To explore what might be behind these differences, LoveJunk compared fly tipping rates with how much each council charges householders for a bulky waste collection. But this analysis showed no obvious link between council bulky waste charges and fly tipping.
To explore what might be behind these differences, LoveJunk compared fly tipping rates with how much each council charges householders for a bulky waste collection. But this analysis showed no obvious link between council bulky waste charges and fly tipping.
Of the five councils with the worst levels of fly tipping, only one charges more than the £30 average collection fee of all London councils. In fact, Redbridge, despite having one of the highest rates of fly tipping, offers bulky waste collection completely for free. Equally, of the five councils with the lowest fly tipping rates, only Bromley has a bulky waste collection charge lower than London’s average.
Table: Fly tipping rates by London borough compared to council bulky waste collection charge
LoveJunk.com Comments
“You often hear how a particular council has a big fly tipping problem and that dropping their bulky waste collection charges will help solve it. So, we thought we’d crunch the data to see if that was really true”, says LoveJunk.com’s founder, Jason Mohr.
LoveJunk.com Comments
“You often hear how a particular council has a big fly tipping problem and that dropping their bulky waste collection charges will help solve it. So, we thought we’d crunch the data to see if that was really true”, says LoveJunk.com’s founder, Jason Mohr.
“Adjusting for number of households (because fly tipped waste is largely from the home), we found that although London clearly does have a serious fly tipping issue, many boroughs are actually in a much better position than the rest of the country. We also found that despite popular belief, levels of fly tipping do not seem remotely connected to how much a council charges for its bulky waste collection service.”
“Rather than urging councils to cut waste collection service fees, maybe it would be more constructive to focus on identifying what are boroughs like Islington, Bromley and Barnet doing differently, so their best practices can be applied to neighbouring councils”.
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More information
For more images and detail, go to https://www.lovejunk.com/blog/trash-talk/fly-tipping/
About LoveJunk.com
LoveJunk.com is an online marketplace for waste removal and reuse. It finds your cheapest available licensed waste collector or reuse organisation. More details at https://www.lovejunk.com/
For more images and detail, go to https://www.lovejunk.com/blog/trash-talk/fly-tipping/
About LoveJunk.com
LoveJunk.com is an online marketplace for waste removal and reuse. It finds your cheapest available licensed waste collector or reuse organisation. More details at https://www.lovejunk.com/