“FLYTIPPING is a blight on our beautiful borough,” says Tower Hamlets Council – and many contributors to local WhatsApp groups and Facebook pages.
Flytipping is, essentially, rubbish that is not in a bin, and the Council tells us that there is a way to deal with it. Download the Council’s Find It Fix It app and report flytipping that takes place near you. Sadly, although the Council encourages residents to use this app, “flytipping” is not one of the options on it. You can try to report flytipping as a street cleansing issue – or report flytipping on the Council’s website, where it is a recognised part of “street cleansing”.
We don’t know how they did it, but residents in Philpott Street did manage to contact the Council and point out that their area was plagued with a bout of flytipping. The Council was able to clear the waste away, as well as having words with local landowners.
The fines for flytipping were increased a year or so ago, so there is an incentive for local businesses to be more careful with their rubbish disposal – though it is hard for the Council to catch flytippers who come in from outside the borough.
The Council’s Waste Services will respond to reports of flytipping that is on a public highway. Sadly, if your flytipping is on a Tower Hamlets Council housing estate you have to report it to the Council’s Housing Services department, which isn’t always easy. Residents have been pressing for the two services to be combined into one telephone number.
Flytipping on a private or housing association estate should be reported to your landlord. If your bins have not been collected or there is rubbish on the floor around them, this is not classed as flytipping. That kind of rubbish can be reported as a missed collection.
●To download the Find It Fix It app, go to Google Play or the Apple store. There does not seem to be any information about how to do this on the Tower Hamlets Council website, which is odd, given that it is one of the Council’s flagship methods of tackling waste.
●To report a missed collection, go to the Rubbish and Recycling page of the Council website, check your collection day and if your collection has been missed, you can report it for immediate action – or do the same on the Find It Fix It app. Rubbish and Recycling collection days and missed collection reports
●Read more about it: Waste services in Tower Hamlets given £5 million boost Will no one take our rubbish?