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Fly-tipping cost council £57,000 in Teignbridge

Rubbish scattered in Teignbridge

Nearly 1,000 fly-tipping incidents were reported in Teignbridge during 2016/17 with the council collecting around 500 tonnes of dumped rubbish.

Clearing up after those who dumped their waste cost the taxpayer an estimated £57,000, a council spokesman has said as they have to carry out its enforcement duties in the 939 incidents reported.

Teignbridge District Council has now launched a new campaign to help curb fly-tipping and is telling people to ‘check who you pay to take it away’.

The main idea of the new campaign is to highlight the dangers of choosing someone other than a licensed waste carrier to dispose of unwanted items and prevent you from running the risk of prosecution or heavy fines as a consequence.

Councillor Kevin Lake, Teignbridge District Council’s Executive member for Environment Services, said: “Fly-tipping is a blight on our environment and costs taxpayers money to deal with. It’s really important that people take steps to check the credentials of those who are being paid to take waste away or you could end up being fined or, worse still, with a criminal record. This is because, by law, your rubbish is your responsibility. It costs nothing to check and could save you a great deal of unnecessary worry.

“We recognise that fly-tipping is a serious and important matter to our residents and we will also always try and find out who was responsible so we can prosecute.”

To highlight the matter, Teignbridge is holding a roadshow on Teignmouth Den on Saturday, May 26.

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