Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the cost of fly-tipping to local authorities.

Research conducted by Eunomia on behalf of Defra estimated the total costs of fly-tipping for all UK authorities to be £103 million per annum. However, the report notes that better information on incident type, size, composition and clean-up cost would be necessary to provide more certainty around this 'very indicative, initial estimate'. This report can be found at: WRAP-eunomia-financial-cost-of-packaging-litter-phase-2-2021

Until 2016/17 Defra estimated the cost of clearing fly-tipping to local authorities in England each year as part of Defra published statistics. The estimated cost in 2016/17 was £57.7 million. These cost estimates are no longer produced but figures for previous years can be found at: www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fly-tipping-in-england