LoveJunk Fly Tipping Report 2025

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This page is a summary of the full LoveJunk Fly Tipping Report 2025, a detailed analysis of Defra 2024 fly tipping statistics for England.

The report covers local authority and regional comparison of fly tipping rates, criminal prosecution levels, fixed penalty fines issuance and payment and vehicle seizure levels.

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Image showing worst councils for fly tipping, all within London

Fly Tipping Increased 6%

In 2024 there were 1,152,617 fly tipping incidents in England. This was a 6.3% increase on 2023's total of 1,084,044.

The national average rate of fly tipping was 20 incidents for every 1000 residents. Councils with the highest rates of fly tipping were the City of London (172), Camden (157), Hackney (127), Westminster (121) and Nottingham (93).

1 in 1000 Prosecution Rate

1,598 fly tipping incidents were prosecuted by the police. An average prosecution rate per fly tip of 0.1% or 1 in 1,000.

181 (61% of) councils did not prosecute anyone for fly tipping, despite suffering 605,643 fly tips between them.

Image showing that there were 1665 prosecutions for fly tipping, a 1 in 500 rate

Image showing that only 13% of 73,316 fixed penalty notices for fly tipping were paid

8 out of 10 Fines Not Paid

Local authorities issued 63,300 fixed penalty notices for fly tipping. This was equivalent to only 5% of all fly tipping incidents.

Of the FPNs that were issued, only 2 in every 10 were paid. This means that only around 1 in 100 of fly tips ever results in a paid fixed penalty notice fine.

£84 million Cost to the Public

Local authorities spent an estimated £65 million clearing up fly tipped waste from public places.

In addition, they spent £19 million on actions to catch and punish fly tippers.

Accordingly, the estimated total cost of fly tipping (ie. clear up plus investigation and punishment) to the public in 2024 was £84 million.

Image showing that fly tipping cost the public £83 million, or £76 per fly tip

Minimal Vehicle Seizures

Under recent powers given to them to help tackle fly tipping, local authorities can seize the vehicle of a fly tipping offender. However, in 2024 only 377 vehicles were seized using these new powers. That is 0.03% of all fly tipping instances, or 3 in 10,000.

Of the 296 local authorities in England, 259 (88%) did not use this power.

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