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WASTE WATCHERS
Page 38
Page 39
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Last October the police gained a new weapon in the battle against fly-tippers — the right to impound vehicles. Just before Christmas they snatched their first truck...
• An East London owner-driver had an unwelcome guest in his cab last month: a police officer armed with a warrant to impound his truck. The operator, who was described as "totally gob-smacked", had to hand over the keys and stand by as his tipper was driven off to a police pound.
He had earned the dubious distinction of becoming the first target in a powerful new weapon in the war against fly-tipping, and the police were anxious to question him about a series of fly-tipping offences in the North London boroughs of Brent, Barnet and Harringey.
The operator denied that he was driving the tipper at the time of the alleged offences, and when he returned the following day with proof of ownership he was allowed to retrieve his truck on payment of a £48.20 impounding fee.
His truck had been snatched by the police, who are now considering whether to press charges, and the London Waste Regulatory Authority. "In the past people have put two fingers up to the authorities, but on this occasion a totally new legal provision came right out of the blue," says Geoff Cooper of the LWRA. Until the seizure, he adds, the owner-driver had been "very unworried that the LWRA was taking an interest in his activities".
This "totally new legal provision" came into force last October. It allows a waste regulation officer to apply to a court for a vehicle seizure warrant if the vehicle has been seen fly-tipping, and it is impossible to find the owner.
The main object is not to keep hold of the vehicle, but to force the owner or keeper to appear before a waste regulation authority to answer questions about the alleged offences.
As soon as a vehicle is impounded a notice of seizure must be placed in a local newspaper in the area where the seizure took place — and if no claim on the vehicle has been made after 28 days it can be sold or destroyed. This new provision was inspired by Labour MP and transport spokeswoman Joan Ruddock. She put together a Private Members Bill and took it through Parliament with Government support. It now forms part of the Control of Pollution (Amendment) Act 1989.
For victims of fly-tipping these provisions have been a long time coming. For years, and particularly in the building boom of the mid-1980s, unscrupulous cut-throat operators have been dumping rubble and rubbish all over the streets and countryside of Britain, to the detriment of the environment and legitimate tipper operators alike. The guilty parties seem to have little regard for the possible consequences. In Avon, for example, toxic drums were found partly buried and it was feared that the contents were leaking into a local reservoir. Fly-tippers also despoil farmland by forcing open gates and leaving the farmer with hundreds of tonnes of builders' rubble to clear.
MAIN TARGET
But London is the main target. In the capital about 1,000 tonnes a day is dumped on streets and private land. It costs local authorities about £15m a year to clear up.
One thing the fly-tippers do have is nerve. In south-east London a team of fly-tippers spent weeks filling the whole of a 20-acre British Rail site with six feet of waste. The policeman who discovered the site says: "They had tractors on site, levelling the load as they deposited it. They had people with hard hats checking the loads in and out, so to any casual passer-by by it looked like a legitimate operation."
The LWRA believes that the 30-40 operators on its fly-tipping files represent only about 10% of the law-breakers in the capital.
Legitimate operators report that fly-tippers regularly quote for work at just the level needed to clinch the deal. Because they do not pay the usual £20-£80 per 20-tonne payload to dispose of the waste at a landfill, and because they do not have to make the long journey out to landfill sites in the shires, profits are high. Legal operators reckon to earn about £250 a week profit per vehicle: a fly-tipper could make £2,000 a week.
Lock Bros (Haulage), which runs 10 tippers from its Greenwich depot in south-east London, estimates that to keep a vehicle running legally costs £700 a month. Director Colin Lock says: "Fly-tippers will go in as cheap as they need to go, with no road tax, no PAYE on their drivers and no maintenance costs. Plus, the people who fly tip don't usually have an Operator's Licence, so the authorities aren't scrutinising them."
Even with the new seizure powers it is clear that the problem cannot be solved overnight.
DAMAGED PLATES
For one thing, waste regulation authorities need to build an incriminating dossier on a vehicle before they can get to the owner by seizing it. And the LWRA's Geoff Cooper says the chances of a fly-tipping incident being witnessed is fairly remote: "They're careful where they dump it," he says, "and it's generally difficult to get a good registration reading because of mud on the plates, damaged plates, or no plates at all."
Another problem with the new legislation is securing a prosecution of the driver involved with the fly-tipping offence. Although there is no need to identify the driver when seizing the vehicle, a successful prosecution can only be brought if the authorities can identify the driver. But that's all going to change. Within three months much stronger powers come into force which, the authorities believe, will finish the fly-tippers once and for all.
The Control of Pollution (Amendment) Act 1989 will require anyone carrying household, industrial or commercial waste ("controlled waste") to be registered with their local waste registration authority. From 1 April it will be an offence to carry waste without a registration certificate; there are some exemptions, but not to any producer of building or demolition waste or their carriers.
The authorities may refuse a licence where the person holds no Operator's Licence or has a conviction for fly-tipping.
The Environmental Protection Act (1990) — the "Green Bill" packs even more punch. From 1 April it will put a "duty of care" on producers of waste to ensure that their waste is legally and responsibly disposed of. When waste is passed from one person to another a waste transfer note must be transferred at the time of handing over the waste, and this document must remain with the waste until it reaches its final, legal resting place.
Fines will increase too: any producer failing to comply with the duty of care provision will face a fine of £2,000.
The LWRA hopes that producers "may decide that employing the cowboys is not cost effective". From 1 April those caught fly-tipping will be fined £20,000 per offence, probably with a suspended prison sentence and possibly with imprisonment. At present, the fine is £2,000 for each offence with the same sentencing.
It sounds good, but will it be enough? Fly-tippers are industrious and cunning in protecting their lucrative way of life, They can also be violent. It will require a sophisticated enforcement operation to keep them at home, but the LWRA is confident that enforcement will be strong enough. When the construction industry starts to boom again, however, legitimate operators will have to wait and see if the waste regulation authorities, police and Vehicle Inspectorate will be able to stem the fly-tipping tide.
0 by Karen Miles