FLY-TIPPING

Fly-tipping is illegal dumping of rubbish. This expression is thought to derive from the phrase “on the fly,” meaning while in motion or in progress, perhaps because such rubbish is usually dumped from a vehicle. It apparently originated in the 1960s [1].

Examples:

“The councillors believe that local fly-tipping has increased since charges for certain building and DIY waste were introduced at local tips in February, 2018.”

“A Welsh Government report said more than 60% of fly-tipping incidents originate from domestic properties - often the householder did not fly-tip themselves but did not carry out the appropriate checks to meet their duty of care, and allowed an unauthorised person to take it away.”

“Every time someone leaves waste on the street, dumped in an alleyway, at the end of the road, outside someone else’s house or even outside their own home, it counts as fly-tipping and is a crime.”



Fly-tipping is a huge problem in the UK. The National Fly-tipping Prevention Group (NFTPG) is a group of organisations that work together to deal with fly-tipping.



[1] “fly-tip” in Oxford Dictionary of English, edited by Stevenson, Angus. Oxford University Press, 2010. 

Photo credit: Philip Bragg