“Why taxes are to blame for Britain’s fly-tipping problem” is the title of an article in today’s Telegraph by Patrick Galbraith, Environment Correspondent, and Emma Taggart, Economics Reporter, both of whom have earned their job titles. The standfirst is the title of this post. “Levy aimed at discouraging people from [X] is having the opposite effect” ought to win a National Recycling Award for ease of re-use. There’s a line that won’t be sent to landfill any time soon.
I quote:
The scale of the problem has become a national scandal, with observers focusing on how to stop fly-tippers, and questions being raised over the efficiency of regulators amid efforts to clean up the mess.
Yet there has been relatively little examination of the causes of the problem. One of the major drivers is that Britain has the highest rate of landfill tax in Europe.
Every time someone hires a skip or asks a builder to tear out a kitchen, the quote for the disposal of the rubbish comes with an added tax of £130.75 per tonne.
According to Mr Rayner, fly-tipping at the level we see it in rural England is “100pc an unintended consequence of the tax”.
The levy was first mooted by Ken Clarke, the former chancellor, in the autumn Budget of 1994 at just £7 per tonne.
At the time, Clarke said that the tax fulfilled “twin objectives of raising money and protecting the environment”. It was Britain’s first tax with an environmental purpose and was introduced with the promise that it would raise “several hundred million pounds a year”.
From 2007 to 2014, the tax rose by £8 a tonne each year in order to meet EU landfill diversion targets. Under Labour, the tax has risen significantly, climbing from £103.70 per tonne in 2024 to £130.75 in April 2026, a 26pc increase in just two years.
It is now far above equivalent taxes on the Continent. In France, the levy is €65 (£56) per tonne, while in Portugal it is €30. Even Denmark’s landfill tax is less expensive than ours.
At face value, the tax makes sense. It discourages people from mindlessly throwing things away and is meant to encourage recycling.
Unfortunately few people ever look past the mask of “face value”.
Sam Dumitriu, the head of policy at Britain Remade, a think-tank that campaigns for economic growth, notes that we currently have a system where taxes effectively incentivise people to fly-tip, but the authorities are scandalously useless at bringing those doing the tipping to justice.
“We have the worst of both worlds in that we have probably the biggest payoff in Europe for committing this crime, but we have pretty poor enforcement,” he says.
The results can be seen in the picture the Telegraph used to illustrate the article:
Up to 20,000 tonnes of waste was dumped beside the River Cherwell in 2025. Credit: Jacob King/PA Wire
I beg to differ, the blame for illegal dumping lies with the dumpers.
This government of talentless no-marks now proposes to tackle knife crime by… imposing a registration regime for vendors of kitchen knives.
Yes, much as there are registered firearms dealers, there will be registered kitchen knife dealers. This will not be free. The costs will be passed on to the customer. None of it will stop a single knife being bought by anyone planning to use it for crime.
They cannot help themselves. Already this pointless excuse of a government has banned the sale and ownership of knives which look a bit scary, knives with saw edge blades, knives with holes in the blades, knives with etching on the blades, starting pistols with upward discharge of gas, and coming to a corner of the NuBrit dystopia soon… crossbows! Yes, 800 year old technology will soon be banned in Britain, much like free speech and free internet access.
Can the madness get much worse? Of course it can. This shower of shit have got three more years to eradicate all freedom in the name of… what exactly?
It’s The March of the Morons, but they’re in government.