Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of fly-tipping on local environments and wildlife.

Tackling all waste crime, including fly-tipping, is a government priority. Fly-tipping involves the illegal deposit of different types of waste, from the small scale deposit of single items to the larger scale deposit of multiple items. Fly-tipping incidents therefore can have different impacts on the environment depending on the type of waste being fly-tipped. The types of waste being fly-tipped can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fly-tipping-in-england.

The Environment Agency has recently published the Waste Crime Interventions and Evaluation Project which included an estimation of the environmental cost of illegal waste sites. The report can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/662841/Waste_crime_interventions_and_evaluation_-_report.pdf