Someone fly-tips in England every 30 seconds, which equates to over 107,000 incidents in a month (England 2007/08)
Do you know the difference between littering and fly-tipping?
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) works for the essentials of life - food, air, land, water, people, animals and plants. Our remit is the pursuit of sustainable development - weaving together economic, social and environmental concerns.
Everyone deserves to live in a thriving neighbourhood where they can feel safe and at ease. We want to make more neighbourhoods the kinds of places where people want to live now and in the future.
Defra is committed to dealing with improving local environmental quality and in particular, tackling the illegal disposal of waste or "fly-tipping". The last few years have seen Defra consulting on numerous measures to improve local authorities and the Environment Agency’s powers to deal with illegal waste crime and fly-tipping.
Defra has also worked closely with the Environment Agency and the Local Government Association to develop Flycapture, the national fly-tipping database. Defra has brought forward the Clean Neighborhoods and Environment Act 2005, which includes a range of pro-active policies that will update and modernise the legislation and will provide more flexible penalties and sentencing arrangements for the courts.
Defra's work will not be carried out in isolation; rather it forms part of the wider cross-Government drive to deliver cleaner, safer, greener communities. We, together with eight other departments, will work closely with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) to help it deliver its new Public Service Agreement target (PSA 8) for improving public space.