Shropshire littering shock
Tuesday 16th March 2010, 2:00PM GMT.
More than 6,000 tonnes of rubbish have been cleared away from the roads and pavements of Shropshire in just eight months in an effort to clean up the county.
And the list of discarded items collected from the streets of the county includes 448 used syringes and 1,104 piles of fly-tipped rubbish – including 5.5 tonnes of asbestos.
As well as 6,138 tonnes of rubbish, 437 stray dogs have been found. The dogs were then either reunited with their owners or taken to kennels.
The figures have been released by the environmental maintenance team at Shropshire Council and cover the period from April to November last year.
The council has now pledged to deploy extra cleaning staff to spruce up towns around the county ahead of the summer tourism season.
Steven Brown, Shropshire Council’s head of environmental maintenance for south Shropshire, said the service was coming to the end of its first year after all the teams merged when the unitary council was formed.
He said: “We hope that the people who work, live and visit the county are also pleased.
“Our teams based across the county have been working hard to keep Shropshire clean and tidy.
“In addition to our regular street-cleaning service, we have been organising community litter picks across the county as part of the national ‘big tidy up’ campaign.”
The team also recovered 16 abandoned vehicles and cleaned up 159 patches of graffiti with the help of the Probation Service.
Teams of volunteers have taken part in litter picks in Bridgnorth, Ludlow, Oswestry, Wem, Bishop’s Castle, and various other villages.
Mr Brown said: “We have also been carrying out enhanced cleans in the county’s market towns to ensure the towns have looked their best, especially during the tourist season.
“Over the next few months we will be deploying additional seasonal street- cleaning staff throughout Shropshire to ensure our market towns are well presented for our residents and visitors.”
He added he would encourage people to let them know of any concerns with environmental issues, including dog fouling, litter and graffiti by calling them on 0345 678 9006.
Alternatively people can report a problem online at www.shropshire.gov.uk/environmentmaintenance.nsf
By Emma Kasprzak
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Why not pledge to start catching the individuals that cause the mess in the first place? Or is that too much to ask?
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@quinny: Well volunteered. I take it you’re not too busy to stake out potential fly tipping spots between midnight and 6am for the next few years of your life?
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yuk
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just goes to show what an untidy lot we are
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the main problem is household / commercial waste. did you know that they charge you up to £100 to get rid of waste? when actually the council make money on it from selling recyclable waste to big companys that recycle it! no wonder people are going out at 3am and dumping loads down a deserted lane. another example is tyre fitting places charging you £6 quid to get rid of one tyre and £40 to get rid of one lorry tyre! They get paid alot of money for old tyres as they are shredded and melted down! why charge when they are getting alot of money for it anyway! another case of dumping them down the lane in middle of the night. and what are they on about now: employing people to go snooping round peoples bins too see if they are putting the right things in the right bins, maybe we should all have fires in our gardens and burn our rubbish, sorry they you would get DONE for having a bonfire in you own garden. Crazy Britain
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John, so it’s OK is it to dump commercial waste to avoid paying for disposing of it and pass the cost onto the rest of us council tax payers to clear up mess?
Is Britain crazy because we have local authorities trying to save us the £48 a ton they have to pay for tipping household waste in landfill? Noone is being paid to snoop in bins, another alarmist misconception, but there is still a need to educate the public to make full use off all the recycling facilities and not put items into grey bins which can go into the recycling bins and boxes, it’s not that hard surely? What’s so crazy about that?
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I’m not sure that this is a surprise. People in the UK seem to have no respect for the environment.
I walk up the Wrekin almost every day and am saddened by the amount of colourful plastic bags lying around. They’re not decorations, they’re carefully knotted bags, into which “responsible” dog-owners have put their dog’s faeces and then simply discarded them. They’re lying around, they’re placed in little nooks and crannies, they’re on tree stumps, they’re thrown into less-walked areas. In fact, they’re anywhere except where they belong – in the dog owner’s bin at home or, if they can’t be bothered with that, at the bin half-way up the Wrekin. It’s not far to carry the bag, really, no matter where the dog relieves itself on this natural landmark.
I’m not sure what warped logic these individuals employ to ensure that they clean up after their dogs and then leave a non-biodegradable bag full of faeces in the environment for others to enjoy. They may as well not bother clearing it up in the first place.
We get two evils for the price of one. Discarded dog faeces AND colourful plastic bags strewn everywhere.
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i dont see why they are bragging about this like some good thing, its all going to landfill, tax alone on this is £72 per tonne, so gordon clown brown is the only one smiling as he’s pocketed £440,000 in disposal costs alone from shropshire council tax payers, what a waste, we should be educating more, preventing more and recycling more and also generate some more income from fining the louts who do this kind of thing
i agree with the above point about lack of disposal options for businesses in shropshrie too, i blame the council for banning white van man from the tip, it only leads to fly tipping,
its also further evidence why we need a burner in shrewsbury to get rid of this muck and reduce the disposal costs for local white van man keeping all the money spent on disposal in the county not going to the treasury too
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maybe businesses who sell disposable stuff and fast food should be forced to have a bin in or outside their store and they should pay for collection and disposal of the waste rather than a communal bill for the tax payer to bear
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is this the same council who thinks they can make shropshire zero waste – good luck to them!
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Why do people throw rubbish out of thier cars?
Every where i go in Shropshire is covered in litter.Plastic bottles and bags mcdonalds bags are very common.
I am sure that those who do this have immaculate cars,
they cannot have unwanted rubbish in the car for one second after they have finnished with it.
Why not simply keep it on the floor until they
get home and put it in the bin that the council
empties for us?
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This reaffirms my beleif that a zero tolerance tough enforcement approach is required in Shrewsbury on all so called “minor” crimes and anti-social behaviour, these criminal people need to be prosecuted
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Hmmmm… Telford & Wrekin Council want me to pay them £15 to collect an old fridge… a kindly irish accented man collected it free of charge last week…. and he’s going to make money from it. Is something back to front here?
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I spent several lunchtimes clearing a mile long stretch of road of litter on the outskirts of Shrewsbury last month. Two weeks later there’s already loads of litter back. Most of it is made up of fast food containers chucked out of car windows, although the bags of dog mess and used condoms are starting to re-appear as well.
Shrewsbury, what’s wrong with you?
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Andrew@13,
Got any contact details for him? – I may be in need of his services
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Andrew@13: yes, no doubt he did collect it f.o.c. because he’ll be able to sell it to merchants for the metal, and good luck to him, THAT is real recycling.
Problem is, the council appoint “recycling officers” whose total contribution to the process appears to be to sign contracts with the first sharp-suited businessman who can show that he has proper disposal facilities. Well, yes, true and good, but our naive “recycling officers” don’t seem to cotton on that THEY should get PAID by said businessman for the waste, and not be paying him to take it away – it’s money for old rope for him.
Too much sitting down developing new “partnerships” and “strategies” with the same old companies that are in cahoots with our councils, rather than taking a common-sense, real-World approach to recycling.
Rag and bone men – the real recyclers – are now reincarnated in Transit tippers with horns to let you know they’re on your estate, at least in Telford. They’re around here every two weeks or so. Use them, they provide a quick, no-nonsense service and don’t charge you again for a council service that you’ve already paid for.
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what dirty people we are in shropshrie, its a disgrace, we need to look at packaging too, less plastic, more biodgegrable cardboard, and less money should be wasted on street cleansing and much more on preventative measures like education and enforcement, i would support harsh fines and more use of community punishment for labouring criminals to clear it up
Suelean you must make sure these people have a waste carriers licence and are ligit or they may fly tip, though i suspect your white goods are valuable purely for the scrap metal it is legally required to recycle them now as they are WEEE which can be recycled free of charge if you return it to the manufacturer
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before we get excited, we should ask, is this more litter than most or as I suspect is this relatively minor, because surely large metropolitan councils must clear this much in a day in some uk cities
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i resent paying all that tax just for this, there must be a massive effort to stop this and free up the money for more productive things
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Mark, post No 8, the council run HOUSEHOLD recycling centres, where they prevent illegal disposal of trade waste, much of which is mixed up and is not recycled.
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when a culprit is found, a public humiliation and 12 months in prison would work wonders to remove a lot of our litter. too many doo gooders in our spciety. bring back the stocks and flogging
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i blame fortnightly collections for this
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surely something could be done to reduce this – maybe they should stop provding litter bins and get people to take it home where it can be recycled instead
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Maria June – blaming fortnightly collections shows a total ignorance of the reality here, people were dumping waste everywhere long before they were introduced if you hadn’t noticed. They have gone a long to raising public awareness of the need to behave responsibly about disposing of waste in fact and the majority of right minded people have seen that and come on board.
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disgusting, how is criminal behaviour anything to do with bin collection regime is beyond me, these people belong in jail
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