Tidy streets down the toilet as dumping in Edinburgh soars by third

THE amount of rubbish being dumped on Edinburgh's streets has soared by nearly a third in the past three years, according to figures released today.

Council workers dealt with 9387 fly-tipping incidents last year – up from 6659 in 2004.

A big rise in items such as TVs and mattresses being dumped next to communal bins, as well as an increase in the number of people reporting incidents, is said to be behind the rise.

City leaders today insisted they were getting on top of the problem through their squads of environmental wardens.

But opposition politicians put the increase – which is an average of 25 fly-tipping incidents a day – down to the council's controversial decision to introduce a special uplift charge last year.

Today's figures also show that just one fixed penalty notice for fly-tipping was issued last year, while a further 33 people received written or verbal warnings for the offence.

Incidents of dumping next to communal bins has risen substantially over the past few years. In 2004 council workers dealt with 353 such incidents, but last year this had risen to 2371.

Councillor Paul Edie, the city's housing leader, said: "These figures show we are making a concerted effort to tackle the problems surrounding fly-tipping.

"Over the years the number of environmental wardens in the city has been increased to tackle these issues. Their priority is not one of heavy-handed fine issuing but primarily to educate the businesses and the public in the long run and to make sure the streets are kept as rubbish free as possible."

A policy introduced in August last year means residents can have one free uplift of unwanted goods a year but have to pay £17.20 for any more. Each household can have up to six items in its single free uplift.

Mark McInnes, the city's Tory environment spokesman, said: "I think we can trace a lot of the problems back to when the charges were introduced.

"While I acknowledge budgetary constraints were responsible for these charges coming in, not enough has been done at the other end to deal with the anticipated increase in fly-tipping.

"There has been a failure to sufficiently increase the number of wardens."

Councillor Steve Burgess, the city's Green Party environment spokesman, said: " There's clearly a need for the council to get the message across that this dumping is illegal, and to let people know how they can recycle items and dispose of them legally."

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