The North in Numbers - Fly tipping: A tsunami of waste sweeping our region

A tsunami of fly tipping has been sweeping the North, with a spike in cases during the pandemic accelerating a trend that has been creeping up for years.

Eddy Edwards, from Moss Side, has been shocked at the amount of rubbish being dumped in his alleyway since moving into his house in 2019. Speaking to Annie Gouk on the latest episode of The North in Numbers, he said: “It was unbelievable the amount of trash that was there - anything and everything that could be chucked out the house was piling up, and it would just keep on happening.

“It’s continually getting worse. If nobody in the area was reporting the fly tipping going on, it would continue to mount up in the streets. In our area there’s probably about 10 people regularly reporting, I’m talking daily - fridges, oversized bins, cars, anything getting left out. If people weren’t so on it, it would get even worse. But it is still incredibly bad.”

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The latest figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs reveal nearly 310,000 incidents of fly-tipping were recorded by councils across the North in 2020/21 - the equivalent of 35 every hour. That’s up 15% from fewer than 270,000 reports of illegally-dumped rubbish in 2019/20, with the increase linked to lockdown.

Listen to the podcast episode in full here:

With not much else to keep us occupied, many people spent their time working on their gardens, decluttering their homes, and doing DIY. At the same time, council services were very stretched, affecting tips and bulky waste collections, and charity shops were closed.

Steve Beasant, Councillor for the East Marsh ward in