Overview

• The little-known duty-of-care loophole empowers councils and environmental agencies to compel landowners to remove illegally dumped waste or face legal action.
• Householders risk £600 fines if their rubbish is handed to unlicensed carriers that subsequently fly-tip.
• Enforcement measures now include doubled on-the-spot fines, unlimited penalties, vehicle seizures and up to five-year prison sentences for serious offences.
• Councils have increased surveillance and rely on Gov.uk waste-carrier licence checks to tackle more than one million incidents recorded in England last year.
• The ongoing trial of Darren Sheen over a 27-tonne waste dump in Lichfield highlights active prosecutions under the government’s strengthened fly-tipping crackdown.