It was a sight that James Johnson will never forget: a 15-metre long — that’s the length of a school bus — heap of garbage strewn across the road, dumped illegally.

“We had old building materials, rubble, soil, waste from houses, furniture, metals, even paperwork with people’s names and addresses,” said Johnson, regulation and enforcement manager for the district council of Lichfield, England.

“Taller than the average person by several feet, it went back a long distance,” he told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. 

He was called to Watery Lane, a rural road in Lichfield, on the morning of January 20.

The illegal dumping, commonly referred to as fly-tipping in the U.K., refers to the rapid, often clandestine disposal of waste typically carried out in the dead of night, according to Johnson.  

“Somebody will turn up very quickly, chuck [waste] from a vehicle and disappear into the night,” he said.

Johnson says it might be the work of unscrupulous individuals who charge unsuspecting residents to take their waste away — only to illegally dump it instead, pocketing the fees.

“More often than not, the householder will say, ‘I saw an advert on Facebook or something similar. I contacted the person, it was really cheap and they took the waste away for me,'” he said.

By noon the next day, the 30 tonnes of trash had been cleared, allowing Watery Lane to reopen, but not without significant cost and disruption. 

A potentially life-threatening situation 

Watery Lane had already been closed at the other end due to a new housing development being built, so both sides were blocked during the incident trapping households in between. 

“It was closed at both ends. That meant emergency services wouldn’t be able to get in if anybody had an emergency,” Elaine Curtis, a resident of Lichfield, told CBC. 

“People were essentially trapped like Christmas crackers, stuck in the middle.”

The impact went beyond residential areas — businesses couldn’t open because the massive pile of waste blocked their only way in. 

Caroline Farnell-Smith, who owns an art studio called The Pottery Cave, lost out on two days of business.

“It had a knock-on effect to a lot of businesses, including mine,” she told the CBC. 

She had to delay client workshops, some of which couldn’t be rescheduled, and since they couldn’t fire the kiln, it also pushed back the timeline for getting other pottery ready for pickup.

The situation has also taken an emotional toll on the community.

The costs related to the clean-up — almost £10,000, or about $17,700 Cdn — and the ongoing investigation has left residents worried about who will bear the financial burden. 

“They were angry, because the only person that’s had to pick up the bill at the moment is the taxpayer,” Farnell-Smith said. 

How can we prevent fly-tipping? 

The penalties for fly-tipping in the U.K. are severe, including up to five years in prison, fines, having vehicles forfeited and being banned from driving, says Johnson.  

Local authorities have the ability to seize vehicles, deploy covert cameras to catch fly-tippers, go into waste sites to question employees and seize property that might contain evidence, like mobile phones.

In addition to enforcement, Curtis says she advocates for education to prevent acts like fly-tipping from happening in the first place. 

In a previous job as head teacher of a primary school, she implemented a series of initiatives aimed at getting children to emotionally invest in protecting the environment. 

“You’ve got to start off with the education, and make sure your children and people value their environments,” she said. 

In Lichfield, Johnson and his team have received a few leads, and have been going through CCTV footage. They’re also meticulously combing through the waste, which includes personal documents with names and addresses, to help trace where the waste came from.

“We’re very hopeful we will catch the people that are behind it,” said Johnson.