Fined £2000: The Landlord Who Hired Illegal Waste Disposal Firm

Household waste that has been dumped illegally in a Field.

If you follow the local news, then you might have seen the story last week about Eoghan Dehalla – the residential landlord who was fined £2000 for fly-tipping. Eoghan didn’t dump the waste himself. He paid someone £100 to dispose of the rubbish and they fly-tipped it. This company were operating without a Waste Carrier Licence. If you hire someone to dispose of your rubbish – you need to be certain that they are disposing of it responsibly – or else you, like Eoghan, could be facing a massive fine.

The Problem of Fly-Tipping

The illegal dumping of waste is called fly-tipping. In recent years, as stricter laws and regulations have come into action at tips across the country, fly-tipping cases have increased. It has proved to be a very expensive crime. Expensive for the environmental damage it causes and expensive to clear up. 

According to The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) there were over 1 million fly-tipping cases across the UK between April 2016 and March 2017. That’s equivalent to 114 every hour! On top of this, it is costing tax payers just under £60 million a year to clear up the waste. Illegal companies dump the waste without the knowledge of the people who paid them to dispose of it. In one terrible incident: over 600 tonnes of waste was dumped under an overpass on the A40.

Illegal Companies

Before hiring a company to deal with your waste, you should always check to see if they have a Waste Carrier Licence. The majority of these fly-tipping cases are due to illegal companies that do not possess a licence to transport and dispose of waste. These illegal companies often pose as legitimate companies on Facebook, before turning out to be a scam.

These illegal companies are also a pest for landowners. When waste is dumped on private land, the onus falls on the owner of the land to dispose of the waste. This can cost hundreds of pounds. If they don’t remove the waste they can get charged for it, even though they had no part in it being dumped there. 

The News Story

Eoghan Dehalla was found guilty of failing to control waste under the Environmental Protection Act of 1990. The landlord was left with a conviction for the fly-tipping as well as the hefty court charge. 

If you need to dispose of your waste, leave it to the professionals. Definitely do not fly-tip the waste and always check that the company you employed to dispose of it have the correct licences.

Have you got some waste you need disposed? Contact us, call us on 01493 668118 or email us on info@wtskiphire.co.uk.


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