Litter and flytipping offences - enforcement review: final report

Background to the project

Every year 250 million easily visible items are dropped as litter and 26,000 tonnes of material is flytipped in Scotland^[6]. The annual direct cost to local authorities of addressing litter and flytipping is estimated to be £60.7 million^[7].

Litter, which can be described as waste in the wrong place left intentionally or unintentionally, and flytipping (the deliberate dumping of waste, from a bin bag of household waste to large quantities of domestic, commercial or construction waste) pose a risk to both the public and the environment. On top of this, litter and flytipping represent a significant leak from the circular economy whereby the materials are incorrectly discarded or disposed of, sending a poor message about their value and limiting opportunities for recycling. They are a wasted resource and do not reflect Scotland’s ambitions to become a circular nation.

Litter and flytipping also create a number of direct and indirect costs. Direct costs come from the need to clear up litter and flytipping, with local authorities, private and public landowners and other statutory undertakers and duty bodies spending money on clearance, enforcement, and education and awareness. “Indirect costs” can be associated with the negative impacts or consequences of litter and flytipping that impact society, including impacts on amenity, mental health, crime, and wildlife^[8].

In 2014 Scottish Government published its litter strategy “Towards a litter-free Scotland: a strategic approach to higher quality local environments”^[9]. This five-year plan set out strategies for Scotland to significantly reduce litter and flytipping and support cleaner, safer communities. The strategy placed a strong focus on prevention, encouraging individuals to take personal responsibility for ensuring their waste does not become litter or flytipping in the first place. Individual behaviour is one of the main challenges associated with a reduction in litter and flytipping as everyone should be responsible for disposing of their waste in an appropriate way.

Scottish Government published a new National Litter and Flytipping Strategy in June 2023, following a public consultation^[10] in late 2021/early 2022. The consultation was undertaken in partnership with Zero Waste Scotland, Keep Scotland Beautiful (KSB) and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA). Analysis of the consultation was published in July 2022^[11]. The new strategy recognises that there are separate issues for litter and flytipping and allows for a tailored approach. In parallel, Marine Scotland published a consultation on a refreshed Marine Litter Strategy^[12] to address litter affecting marine and coastal environments.

While individual action is key to preventing litter and flytipping in the first place, there is also a role for regulation and enforcement. A review of the 2014 National Litter Strategy^[13] highlighted a number of challenges with litter and flytipping enforcement. These barriers include:

• The ability to gather appropriate evidence.
• Identification of offenders.
• The recovery of fines.
• A lack of consistency and coordinated approach across Scotland.

One of the key themes of the National Litter and Flytipping Strategy consultation was enforcement, with the aim to deliver a strong and consistent enforcement model across Scotland that is fit for purpose, promotes positive behaviour, and acts as a proportionate deterrent and effectively stops people from littering and flytipping.

This report reviews evidence, and draws in the views of key stakeholders, relating to the barriers to enforcement of litter and flytipping offences and its effectiveness. It also presents recommendations that aim to help shape the development of a more effective enforcement model.

Project aims and objectives

The aim of this project was to:

• Identify and assess the key barriers to current enforcement practices to enhance understanding of litter and flytipping enforcement approaches used in Scotland and elsewhere and inform what changes should be implemented to ensure that Scotland’s enforcement model is effective and deters people from littering and flytipping.

The project had the following research objectives:

• Objective 1 – Identify, collate, and review available evidence to describe the range of enforcement activity across Scotland, the UK and also internationally, to cover enforcement actions taken against individuals or businesses found to be littering, flytipping or passing household and/or commercial waste to unauthorised carriers.
• Objective 2 – Assess and enhance understanding of the effectiveness of the different enforcement actions as a deterrent and their impact in reducing litter and flytipping behaviours, where possible explaining the rationale behind any trends identified and highlighting best practice.
• Objective 3 – Explore barriers to the use of existing enforcement powers for litter and flytipping in Scotland and what might facilitate more effective enforcement and greater impact of existing enforcement actions.
• Objective 4 – Make recommendations – based on the evidence gathered for this project and taking into account the Scottish context – as to areas for further exploration, including potential changes in approaches to overcome the barriers to effective enforcement of litter and flytipping offences and identifying suitable approaches and best practice not currently used in Scotland.

This project involved a rapid evidence and literature review to understand trends over the last 5 years using key metrics, determine what is and is not effective when it comes to enforcement and the main barriers to effective enforcement. Stakeholder engagement was used to validate desktop findings and identify and critically evaluate key challenges for enforcement from the perspective of enforcement agencies and other key stakeholders. The key changes needed to ensure that Scotland’s future enforcement model is effective and deters people from littering and flytipping were consolidated into a set of recommendations. A detailed overview of the methodology used can be found in Appendix 1 – Methodology 1.