Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Favoured Rubbish Dumping Spots - What's the Solution?
We all know of a spot we walk past locally which is a favoured rubbish dumping spot.
There's one at the bottom of the road on which I live - the dumps are rarely that big, but they’re persistent. Usually, I'll spend less then a minute to snap a picture with the Haringey report-it app and zap off a report.
Some people question the wisdom of this. 'Doing that', they say, 'just encourages people to dump. If they know it will be collected they'll dump again'.
I can't say that I disagree with their logic. My actions may well have that effect. But, on the other hand it's also probably true that many of the people who do dump, don't give their actions a second thought. They just want to be rid of their mess and make it someone else's problem. If their dumped rubbish wasn't cleared and instead it piled up, I'm sure they'd just tut and mutter about how useless the Council is. Most wouldn't amend their behaviour.
The Broken Windows theory also holds true - uncleared rubbish attracts more rubbish.
So, on balance, I decide to carry on reporting. However, I can't help thinking that there must be a better way to focus on trouble spots.
I asked the Council how many times they've been called to collect rubbish at the bottom of my road over the past couple of years. I got their answer this week and it turns out it's somewhere between every day and every other day, 21 times a month on average.
Given the degree to which Council decisions are driven by financial considerations these days, my thoughts had been running along the lines of working out the cost of collecting all this rubbish and whether some sort of deterrence measure would work out cheaper.
However, on the issue of cost the email said "The cost of collecting dumped rubbish in the borough is included as part of the overall core contract cost. There is no separate payment to Veolia for collection of this type of dumped rubbish".
That gave me pause for thought. The implication of this answer is that, as things stand now, the Council has no financial interest in deterring dumping. It's good that responding to dumped rubbish reports are part of the contract with Veolia, but in contracting out dealing with the problem, I can't help feeling the Council has divested itself of a good part of its interest in solving it.
Now it's Veolia who have the over-riding interest in dealing with the issue and they're only likely to consider it in the context of the lifetime of the current contract. Would they therefore be interested in deterrence measures? Maybe....if the sums were right.....maybe....
What might deterrence look like? I guess the first option would be designing out the attractiveness of a place for dumping. An alternative has to be some sort of punitive regime. We know that bad behaviour like driving in bus lanes is very well controlled by fines and whilst it's true that people don't wear licence plates, I wonder if this might also work for dumping.
Answers on a postcard.........
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by LSquared on
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My husband goes out a few times a week and tidies up the patch between that junction and the Roslyn/Braemar junction. He tidies up everything small enough to fit in our wheelie-bin (which includes other people's dumped rubbish bags) and reports anything that is too big.
We seem to see less fly-tipping when the street is clear of rubbish.
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Thanks for raising this Hugh. finding rubbish dumped every at the bottom of our road is a very upsetting view every morning. I keep emailing pictures to the council too, but your post just explained their attitude. The problem is that people dump at night, so unless you want to set up a nightly vigilante army you will never catch the perpetrators. The other issue is that foxes rip open the bags at night and then in the morning you got sh*t all over the street and being carried into your garden and everywhere. I spoke to one of the litter pickers and he said that they are only contracted to clear up 20 meters up from Green Lanes I think, so anything after that on any of the Ladder or Garden Roads just stays there and invites other people to dump their rubbish. We also have a problem with people sitting in their idling cars (and polluting the air) and then just throwing their takeaway rubbish out of the window. More bins and a greater remit of street cleaners seem the only option.
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Permalink Reply by Sarah on
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If dumped items have deliver stickers take three photos:
1. close up of the sticker
2. sticker on envelope/box
3. wide angle clearly showing location
Otherwise just write down as much as you can about time of day, description of person, any distinguishing features etc.
Send them to brian.ellick@haringey.gov.uk
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Ask him. I know Haringey have introduced the £400 fine for fly tipping which is more than my borough did.
A complaint I made was forwarded to him last week but I didn't have any evidence, mostly because this happened in the middle of the night and it was more the anti-social behaviour element I was concerned with (I wasn't going to go out there at 3am to ask a carload of guys to pose for photos). But he did get back to me promptly with a template witness statement.
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Permalink Reply by Katie K on
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Brian Ellick is the East Team Leader in the 'Enforcement' team, according to the Haringey website:
http://www.haringey.gov.uk/environment-and-waste/enforcement
I have used this link to report somebody I spotted dumping rubbish and got a call from somebody in enforcement a couple of days later saying they were going round to the house to see the person about it, so I think it's worth doing:
http://www.haringey.gov.uk/environment-and-waste/rubbish-and-recycl...
Katie
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Ah I'm a bit more east so maybe those on the ad later might have a different contact. Good to hear they are responding. Back when I worked in enforcement I used to keep an eye on their website and thought they were doing several things better than we were.
They need to though. The state of this borough!
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Permalink Reply by Ruth on
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And another one is the corner of Stanhope Gardens, opposite Barclays bank, by the lock up garages. There are often mattresses there which are ugly and a nuisance but this evening Thurs. 2nd at 7.50pm it was truly splendid, with the pavement blocked. OK, you could walk across one of these filthy things but what if you are disabled? In a wheelchair? You go onto the road and risk getting hurt by a speeding car turning down the road. I'm sure the local outdoor drinkers will appreciate having somewhere to sit during their session tonight and leave their mess on top of this for tomorrow morning.
I'm utterly sick of this being what we have to accept, the way of life in the inner city etc. No matter how I vote tomorrow, I doubt anyone will get on top of this. They haven't in the past 20 years I've lived here. They need to start catching, fining heavily or locking up those responsible. People keep doing it, there is no deterrent it seems.
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Getting tough on rubbish dumpers hasn't been the message I've been seeing from the flyers that keep piling up on my doormat Mimi, sorry to say!
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that is true. Perhaps we could form some kind of citizen initiative? Combine that with the clean air initiatives and tackling noise pollution? I don't understand why we don't have speed cameras on Green Lanes. Surely they can't be that expensive? Those motorbike riders that treat Green Lanes as a race track in the middle of the night - and day - are so disruptive to the whole neighbourhood..
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Speed cameras plus cameras at these rubbish dumping hotspots, that would deter or at least catch some people and lead to prosecutions. This is beyond what a citizen's initiative can do Mimi- this dumping needs official action.
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yes I know. it was half tongue in cheek. The council will just need to spend a bit more money. And one thing for the council to get more money is to attract more people with jobs that can pay tax. And the majority of the population on here seems to be against this line of thought
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