Council sets aside hundreds of thousands of pounds to tackle fly-tipping

Ted Peskett, local democracy reporter

Hundreds of thousands of pounds is being set aside to tackle inner city fly-tipping in Cardiff, which council officials say is on the rise.

Cardiff Council’s environmental scrutiny committee met on Tuesday, February 25 to discuss the budget for 2025-26 and how it will affect recycling and waste collection in the city.

The city council announced recently that it will be making a one-off revenue investment of £1m for initiatives which improve recycling rates.

When pressed for further details by the scrutiny committee on what this would entail, council officers said part of it will involve a focus on education and enforcement.

Targeted campaign

Cardiff Council’s operational manager for recycling services, Graham Harris said: “There will be a targeted campaign on removing food. There is also a campaign that we do work on on the flats.

“We have got a lot of flats that have communal bins and across Wales recycling rates in those types of properties is lower than the average, so we will be looking at introducing segregated recycling into the flats.

“Running alongside the education, there will be some enforcement, particularly around some of our inner-city wards where we are seeing waste now accumulate around on-street litter bins.

“We will be doing some targeted enforcement and education, ensuring people are aware on what days to present, how it should be presented and where it is not presented properly then to investigate and potentially undertake action on people who are continually fly-tipping.

“That should help improve the recycling rates then going forward.”

The final rollout of Cardiff Council’s sack-sort recycling scheme, which sees residents present their waste in separate sacks and a container instead of mixing it into one bag, is taking place in March.

Cardiff Council’s head of economic development told scrutiny committee members the council has seen a “fairly significant improvement” in the rate of recycling over the last year and it is expected to be 64% by the end of this year.

The roll out of sack-sort recycling next month will not affect residents in flats.

A new bespoke scheme for those residents will follow, but further information on this won’t be provided until later in the year.

Litter bins

In response to Mr Harris’ comments, environmental scrutiny committee member, Cllr Mike Ash-Edwards, said he welcomed the additional money to tackle fly-tipping.

Cllr Ash-Edwards, who is also one of the councillors for Heath, added: “Having observed certainly in my ward there seems to be over the last few months people clearly dumping in litter bins on a regular basis.”

Cardiff Council faces a budget gap of £27.7m for 2025-26.

Some of the service changes in relation to waste disposal and recycling which the council is proposing in order to save money include the removal of certain roles and increases a number of fees and charges.

If the proposals are approved, the reduction in roles will be done through non-replacement of vacancies and voluntary redundancy.

Planned increases in charges and fees relate to the disposal of commercial waste at recycling centres, bulky waste collections and the replacement of bin wheels and lids.

For bulky waste collection charges, there will be a 20% increase.

This will see the collection of up to two items go up from £12.50 to £15; up to four items from £25 to £30; and up to six items from £37.50 to £45.