There are traffic management cameras literally everywhere in the UK. It's impossible to drive up to that spot without passing by hundreds of them. The fact that they didn't charge anyone speaks volumes about the level of incompetence.
This should be treated with absolute top priority by the police, with the same level of forensic attention as a terrorist attack. If everybody associated with the crime, including those providing, accepting, storing, transporting and dumping the waste are found an prosecuted to the absolute extent of the law, it would be a very good precedent and deterrent against future repetitions.
Slapping a police state on top of shortsighted policy failings doesn't make them not policy failings. Heck, it might even cost society more than scooping up the illegally dumped trash.
This isn't a problem that jurisdictions with competently run waste logistics have. When you hear about illegal dumping in the NYC area it's not literal mountains of trash like this. It's tires or hazmat or something that's genuinely expensive to get rid of for good reason.
Take a step back and think about the economics of bulk material hauling whether it's dirt or trash, the fact that the risk-reward calculation here pencils out should throw a massive "something deeper is wrong" red flag.
I propose we kick all of the people who talk like you out, and then find a solution in peace, without all the screeching and "something must be done"-isms. I bet we not only solve this in short order, but a whole other bunch of issues too.
Searching for the tech angle... "the police had used a helicopter with a heat-seeking camera, and could see that some of the waste was indeed starting to decompose." - a less exciting but cheaper and more informative option could have been donning overalls and rubber boots and taking a spade and a probe thermometer across it
25M dollars? Buy a truck and something to load it. Pay one guy to spend the next few years moving it to a landfill as a full time job instead of contracting out the big cleanup.
Where's the truck gonna dump it? The reason this stuff was dumped here in the first place is because waste disposal is so absurdly regulated or administered that it was "cheap enough to be worth the risk" to do it this way than the right way.
This isn't a problem that municipalities with "better in the landfill than the river" policies have. This is the kind of problem you get when a bunch of the let them eat cake crowd run amuck. It's literally the "why is our city covered in trash". "I don't know Karen, maybe because you voted to have everyone pay per bag so nobody picks up litter the blows into their yard because it literally costs them" problem but in truck sized increments.
> This isn't a problem that municipalities with "better in the landfill than the river" policies have. This is the kind of problem you get when a bunch of the let them eat cake crowd run amuck. It's literally the "why is our city covered in trash". "I don't know Karen, maybe because you voted to have everyone pay per bag so nobody picks up litter the blows into their yard because it literally costs them" problem but in truck sized increments.
Yes, dumping trash costs money, as it should, how else do you wish to account for the externality of creating trash? Either through taxes or paying per disposal.
It seems to work pretty well here in Sweden (it's free at the point of collection, paid by taxes), it's a bit annoying to go to the proper recycling center for anything that isn't normal household trash but people still do it, it's not perfect but bigger recycling stations accepting tyres, furniture, electronics, etc. are properly used to dispose of anything that isn't paper/plastics/metal/glass from day-to-day usage, for those there are always a nearby recycling station to dispose at.
Also looks like it works well in the Netherlands, in Denmark, and other countries with similar wealth to the UK. Perhaps it's culture the problem, not policy, fix the culture.
It's very easy to screech about overregulation as the cause of anything, like a boogeyman you can use for all sorts of issues, this issue in particular is quite properly solved in similar countries so stop with the screech, please. If the regulations in place do not work, change it, do away with paying for collection and use taxes for it so people don't feel the pain when they need to throw the trash out, it's already "paid".
The biggest environmental scandal in Sweden in the past years was the Think Pink[0] case where a company ("Think Pink") lied about properly disposing of the trash they were responsible for, founder and directors of the company are in jail for that.
What about prison labor? I'm no fan of the ball and chain, but I think inmates picking up trash is a perfectly reasonable and effective form of societal benefit.
It costs money to dispose of waste legally. There is always, therefore, a black market for waste disposal.
This is particularly sensitive at the moment because there is a heightened awareness of damage being done to inland waterways in the UK: a popular TV show involving two comedians fishing has raised awareness of the value of rivers (chalk streams in particular); and, water companies (privately owned for-profit entities in the UK), have been reporting record discharges of sewage into rivers and the sea while also paying record payouts to shareholders and executives.
I think most people know of a local fly-tipping issue in the UK. This is particularly awful though, as it's clearly very professionally done, and it's also right next to an important river.
In municipalities run by non-idiots able to think more than "yeah that sounds good" steps ahead there is little black market for disposal of anything beyond the most genuinely hazardous waste because it's not prohibitively expensive to do it right.
Do you want tires and TVs in the river and woods? Charging $20 a pop at the dump is how you get tires and TVs in the woods.
This is the same problem but in larger increments.
Man, the missing quote marks around the word "revolting" made me think Sky was being disgustingly editorial with their titles.
Reminds me of Deus Ex, where the newsreader reports the news with a slant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpK9DusUy_I .. Although of course way too many TV "news"-readers in real life do it too.
For the unaware, the accepted standard is that using quote marks in titles make it fine, because it means the news article is quoting someone's words.
So the real problem is fly tipping, I was trying to understand where is all this waste coming from. That's an enormous amount of trash to just be floating there. I've never considered myself that much of an environmentalist, but this is ridiculous and the solution may be significant fines and jail time.
And before there's any talk of unfair waste disposable taxes or costs, it cost money to run a landfill. Maybe it's expensive to the most person, but simply dumping on the side of the road is not an excuse nor solution.
This is no different than the massive piles of clothing in the desert of Chile, the rivers of Southeast Asia that have more trash than water, or any other place. We can burn it, bury it, recycle it, but if we don't do something it's going to eventually overwhelm and sicken everyone.
I live in a poor shithole (by HN standards, I think it's fine) of a city and we don't have litter or dumping problems.
You know why? Because if it fits in the bin the truck takes it. And every address gets one bin paid for via property taxes. It literally costs nothing at the point of use to "do the right thing"
You only get problems like this when a bunch of habitually compliant "let them eat cake" people either intentionally craft policy or through ignorance let nefarious interests dig their claws in and rent seek and just assume that people will bend over and take it rather than throwing their old tires in the river.
I would never assume that you live in a "poor shit hole" of a country, I don't think any country is a "shit hole" and respectfully, no country should be called that. But I do think some societies dismiss waste as a fact of life because of poverty and corruption. Maybe it is a "societal" problem, or a "cultural" problem, but I think it's a lot more complex than that.
It’s an enforcement and public cleanup issue everywhere, but some are worse than others.
Anytime the cost is > $0 (and it always is! Even if the actual cost at the dump is $0, transport takes time and money), there is an incentive to be lazy and just dump stuff wherever. It’s not uncommon in rural areas that someone even has a dump ‘hole’ on their property in many places, due to the time and cost of making a trip to the actual dump.
Fines often help (digging through trash to find out whose stuff it is has real benefits if you can turn around and fine someone for it!), as does social pressure. It never completely stops happening though, which is why public cleanups also are important sometimes (see broken window theory, which isn’t completely wrong!).
There are traffic management cameras literally everywhere in the UK. It's impossible to drive up to that spot without passing by hundreds of them. The fact that they didn't charge anyone speaks volumes about the level of incompetence.
This should be treated with absolute top priority by the police, with the same level of forensic attention as a terrorist attack. If everybody associated with the crime, including those providing, accepting, storing, transporting and dumping the waste are found an prosecuted to the absolute extent of the law, it would be a very good precedent and deterrent against future repetitions.
Slapping a police state on top of shortsighted policy failings doesn't make them not policy failings. Heck, it might even cost society more than scooping up the illegally dumped trash.
This isn't a problem that jurisdictions with competently run waste logistics have. When you hear about illegal dumping in the NYC area it's not literal mountains of trash like this. It's tires or hazmat or something that's genuinely expensive to get rid of for good reason.
Take a step back and think about the economics of bulk material hauling whether it's dirt or trash, the fact that the risk-reward calculation here pencils out should throw a massive "something deeper is wrong" red flag.
I propose we kick all of the people who talk like you out, and then find a solution in peace, without all the screeching and "something must be done"-isms. I bet we not only solve this in short order, but a whole other bunch of issues too.
Searching for the tech angle... "the police had used a helicopter with a heat-seeking camera, and could see that some of the waste was indeed starting to decompose." - a less exciting but cheaper and more informative option could have been donning overalls and rubber boots and taking a spade and a probe thermometer across it
This is bad but I feel like it’s more suitable to a subreddit than HN
25M dollars? Buy a truck and something to load it. Pay one guy to spend the next few years moving it to a landfill as a full time job instead of contracting out the big cleanup.
Where's the truck gonna dump it? The reason this stuff was dumped here in the first place is because waste disposal is so absurdly regulated or administered that it was "cheap enough to be worth the risk" to do it this way than the right way.
This isn't a problem that municipalities with "better in the landfill than the river" policies have. This is the kind of problem you get when a bunch of the let them eat cake crowd run amuck. It's literally the "why is our city covered in trash". "I don't know Karen, maybe because you voted to have everyone pay per bag so nobody picks up litter the blows into their yard because it literally costs them" problem but in truck sized increments.
> This isn't a problem that municipalities with "better in the landfill than the river" policies have. This is the kind of problem you get when a bunch of the let them eat cake crowd run amuck. It's literally the "why is our city covered in trash". "I don't know Karen, maybe because you voted to have everyone pay per bag so nobody picks up litter the blows into their yard because it literally costs them" problem but in truck sized increments.
Yes, dumping trash costs money, as it should, how else do you wish to account for the externality of creating trash? Either through taxes or paying per disposal.
It seems to work pretty well here in Sweden (it's free at the point of collection, paid by taxes), it's a bit annoying to go to the proper recycling center for anything that isn't normal household trash but people still do it, it's not perfect but bigger recycling stations accepting tyres, furniture, electronics, etc. are properly used to dispose of anything that isn't paper/plastics/metal/glass from day-to-day usage, for those there are always a nearby recycling station to dispose at.
Also looks like it works well in the Netherlands, in Denmark, and other countries with similar wealth to the UK. Perhaps it's culture the problem, not policy, fix the culture.
It's very easy to screech about overregulation as the cause of anything, like a boogeyman you can use for all sorts of issues, this issue in particular is quite properly solved in similar countries so stop with the screech, please. If the regulations in place do not work, change it, do away with paying for collection and use taxes for it so people don't feel the pain when they need to throw the trash out, it's already "paid".
The biggest environmental scandal in Sweden in the past years was the Think Pink[0] case where a company ("Think Pink") lied about properly disposing of the trash they were responsible for, founder and directors of the company are in jail for that.
[0] https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_Pink-skandalen
What about prison labor? I'm no fan of the ball and chain, but I think inmates picking up trash is a perfectly reasonable and effective form of societal benefit.
How about making the arseholes who dumped that rubbish clean it up.
We already have something along those lines although in this case I would hope they wouldn’t be so lenient:
https://www.gov.uk/community-sentences
Someone makes money on circumventing a landfill tax? Economic incentives work in mysterious ways.
It costs money to dispose of waste legally. There is always, therefore, a black market for waste disposal.
This is particularly sensitive at the moment because there is a heightened awareness of damage being done to inland waterways in the UK: a popular TV show involving two comedians fishing has raised awareness of the value of rivers (chalk streams in particular); and, water companies (privately owned for-profit entities in the UK), have been reporting record discharges of sewage into rivers and the sea while also paying record payouts to shareholders and executives.
I think most people know of a local fly-tipping issue in the UK. This is particularly awful though, as it's clearly very professionally done, and it's also right next to an important river.
In municipalities run by non-idiots able to think more than "yeah that sounds good" steps ahead there is little black market for disposal of anything beyond the most genuinely hazardous waste because it's not prohibitively expensive to do it right.
Do you want tires and TVs in the river and woods? Charging $20 a pop at the dump is how you get tires and TVs in the woods.
This is the same problem but in larger increments.
Man, the missing quote marks around the word "revolting" made me think Sky was being disgustingly editorial with their titles.
Reminds me of Deus Ex, where the newsreader reports the news with a slant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpK9DusUy_I .. Although of course way too many TV "news"-readers in real life do it too.
For the unaware, the accepted standard is that using quote marks in titles make it fine, because it means the news article is quoting someone's words.
How can you reasonably argue that this is anything but revolting? I don’t see what you’re getting at.
So the real problem is fly tipping, I was trying to understand where is all this waste coming from. That's an enormous amount of trash to just be floating there. I've never considered myself that much of an environmentalist, but this is ridiculous and the solution may be significant fines and jail time.
And before there's any talk of unfair waste disposable taxes or costs, it cost money to run a landfill. Maybe it's expensive to the most person, but simply dumping on the side of the road is not an excuse nor solution.
This is no different than the massive piles of clothing in the desert of Chile, the rivers of Southeast Asia that have more trash than water, or any other place. We can burn it, bury it, recycle it, but if we don't do something it's going to eventually overwhelm and sicken everyone.
I live in a poor shithole (by HN standards, I think it's fine) of a city and we don't have litter or dumping problems.
You know why? Because if it fits in the bin the truck takes it. And every address gets one bin paid for via property taxes. It literally costs nothing at the point of use to "do the right thing"
You only get problems like this when a bunch of habitually compliant "let them eat cake" people either intentionally craft policy or through ignorance let nefarious interests dig their claws in and rent seek and just assume that people will bend over and take it rather than throwing their old tires in the river.
I would never assume that you live in a "poor shit hole" of a country, I don't think any country is a "shit hole" and respectfully, no country should be called that. But I do think some societies dismiss waste as a fact of life because of poverty and corruption. Maybe it is a "societal" problem, or a "cultural" problem, but I think it's a lot more complex than that.
It’s an enforcement and public cleanup issue everywhere, but some are worse than others.
Anytime the cost is > $0 (and it always is! Even if the actual cost at the dump is $0, transport takes time and money), there is an incentive to be lazy and just dump stuff wherever. It’s not uncommon in rural areas that someone even has a dump ‘hole’ on their property in many places, due to the time and cost of making a trip to the actual dump.
Fines often help (digging through trash to find out whose stuff it is has real benefits if you can turn around and fine someone for it!), as does social pressure. It never completely stops happening though, which is why public cleanups also are important sometimes (see broken window theory, which isn’t completely wrong!).
[dead]