Shropshire Star comment: Keep eyes peeled for fly-tippers

Only occasionally do the fly-tippers get caught and brought to book. Yet look at the cost.

Across the county it is running at more than £320,000 a year, with 11 cases every day.

Catching offenders is notoriously difficult. They can strike anywhere, any time. The places they dump their rubbish are country lanes, open spaces, roadsides, and so on, where they can carry on their illegal actions without observation or hindrance.

Nevertheless, considering the high cost of cleaning up after them, we must be moving closer to a situation in which a more proactive and aggressive approach to catch and deter offenders would deliver real value for money.

There is a large sum of public money which could be saved if the disgusting practice of illegal dumping was reduced or, in an ideal world, stamped out entirely.

Places which are being defiled are often beauty spots. Garnishing them with random sofas or dumped industrial waste takes away that beauty and deprives law-abiding Salopians of their right to enjoy the countryside.

Individuals who commit this crime against the environment are lazy and selfish. Even worse are those who are dumping on an industrial scale, perhaps even being paid to do so.

The dilemma is this; how much can cash-strapped councils afford to spend on what may be a wild goose chase in their attempts to track down offenders? You could put it another way though. How much can they afford to spend on cleaning up?

For areas which are being repeatedly targeted, there must surely be an opportunity to catch some of the offenders, which might take only a small investment – perhaps covert motion-sensitive cameras or the like. Bringing them to court would make an example of them and send a message that their activities were not being tolerated.

Passive solutions might also be available in making the fly-tipping hotspots inaccessible to the vehicles which are clearly being used to commit the offences. Yes, it may just displace the problem, but why make it easy for them?

It’s a difficult problem with no easy solution, but every member of the public can do their bit to fight back against flytippers. Keep your eyes peeled – and help save your local environment.