How to Catch Fly Tippers in the UK

May 7, 2021 - Reading time: 7 minutes

Fly tipping is one of the unfortunate problems that private land owners in the UK are faced with. With substantial clean up bills amounting to thousands of pounds in many cases, the financial impact of fly tipping can often prove devastating.

Fly tippers often leave behind hazardous waste which can be costly to remove and potentially harmful to your health. Construction waste containing asbestos is regularly found within fly tipped rubbish and has the potential to contaminate your land, leading to even larger clean up bills. 

Due to the costs associated with clean up, many landowners take steps to fortify and protect their land, with the goal of blocking access to nefarious individuals and their waste. As a leading detective agency based in the UK, we have dealt with many cases where land owners have simply had enough of fly tipping, and instructed us to stakeout their land with the goal of catching fly tippers in the act.

How to catch fly tippers in the UK

We believe that the illegal dumping of waste has no place in a modern society, and that fly tippers should be caught and prosecuted wherever possible. With that in mind, we have put together the following tips which can be used to help catch fly tippers.

1. Keep an eye on your property

If you own a piece of vacant land, then making regular visits to it should be a priority for you. If fly tippers deposit waste onto a piece of land and discover that it has remained undisturbed for several weeks or months, this can act as encouragement for them to continue and deposit even more rubbish on the site.

Keeping an eye on your property can help to nip fly tipping in the bud before it escalates. Similarly, maintaining your land by regularly cutting back vegetation and hedges can sometimes help to make it appear well maintained and thus less appealing to fly tippers. Fly tippers will typically look to deposit waste onto land where it may not be noticed for several weeks or months, which helps to lower their likelihood of getting caught. 

Joining your local “neighbourhood watch” or “farm watch” initiatives can also prove beneficial in many cases.

2. Install hidden cameras

If you are seeking to actually catch a fly tipper, then hidden cameras are a great means of doing so. Whereas overt cameras are often intended to act as a deterrent, hidden cameras can be used to gather evidence of fly tippers without them noticing or becoming aware of the surveillance. 

Overt camera which are not hidden can sometimes even prompt fly tippers to take steps to conceal their identities, such as obscuring the number plates on their vehicles whilst they unload rubbish. If your goal is to actually catch a fly tipper in the act and prosecute them, then using hidden cameras would be a good choice in most cases.

Camera technology has come a long way in recent years, and devices which are powered by solar panels, or rechargeable battery powered cameras can be utilized without a supply of mains power.

When choosing a camera, it’s important to select a model which is capable of recording vehicle number plates, and quality images of the perpetrator’s faces. The cameras should then be positioned in such a way that they remain discreet while capturing the best possible evidence.

If you are not technically minded or need help with installing a hidden camera on your land then we can help. We have installed camera equipment which has been used to catch those responsible for fly tipping on numerous occasions, and our detectives cover all areas of the UK. Please feel free to get in touch with us for a quote.

3. Conduct stakeouts on your property

While this may seem over the top to some, if your land has previously been subject to fly tipping then you will know that the clean up costs can quickly add up into thousands of pounds. Catching fly tippers red handed can provide the opportunity to pursue them through the courts with the goal of recovering any clean up costs they have caused you to accrue, as well as making the police aware so that they can hopefully begin proceedings in the criminal courts.

While conducting stakeouts, you should be mindful as to the position where you lay in wait, and make sure that you bring quality camera equipment which can be used to capture clear evidence. For stakeouts at night, cameras which capture high quality images during low light should be used. 

If you are not able to stakeout land yourself or require help, then our detectives can help to provide you with surveillance, with the goal of catching any fly tippers in the act.

4. Work as a community 

Fly tipping creates an unsightly blight on our country sides and urban areas, and with clean up bills across the UK reaching millions of pounds per annum, fly tippers cause land owners huge amounts of avoidable work and expense.   

Rather than deterring fly tippers from entering your land and encouraging them to dump rubbish elsewhere, we feel that one solution is to work together as a community to catch fly tippers, prosecute them, and put them out of business for good.

 

Working as a community to defeat fly tippers can take many different forms, from pooling resources to instruct private investigators to surveil an area with the goal of catching fly tippers in the act, setting up CCTV systems and sharing images with each other, or starting a neighbourhood watch program where community members keep an eye on each other’s properties.

Maintaining good relationships within your community is key. We suggest speaking to your neighbours and letting them know that you are not expecting deliveries of household or building waste on your property now or at any point in the future. Advise your community members of fly tipping activity in the area and ask them to jot down the number plates of any vehicles that are seen acting suspiciously.

Getting professional help

At PrivateInvestigators-UK, we are often instructed to help catch fly tippers, whether through our personal surveillance service, hidden camera installation, or other forms of investigation. If you would like to learn more about us and the different services that we offer then please read our homepage for more information, or feel free to contact one of our experienced team members if you require our help.