FLY-TIPPING

noun Also written fly tipping or flytipping (Environment) In the UK: unauthorized dumping of rubbish on the streets or on unoccupied ground. Etymology: Formed by compounding. The fly- part is probably ultimately derived from the verb to fly (the culprits tip and fly); it is the equivalent of fly-posting (a term which dates back to the early years of this century) except that it involves dumping rubbish rather than putting up posters. Since the thirties, street salesmen have called their unlicensed pitches fly-pitches, but this name is probably derived from the adjective fly, 'clever'. History and Usage: The term fly-tipping has been used in technical sources to do with waste disposal since at least the late sixties. A topical problem in the Britain of the eighties, fly-tipping was the subject of tighter legislation in 1989 to try to tidy up city streets and give the UK a greener image. The term fly-tipping has also been applied to the dumping of toxic waste in other countries. Fly-tip has been back-formed as the verb corresponding to the noun fly-tipping; individuals or bodies who do it are fly-tippers. The LIFT...Report divides the people who fly tip into four categories: the 'organised criminal', the 'commercial', the 'domestic' and the 'traveller'. The organised criminal fly tipper operates to make money through illegal deposition of wastes. Managing Waste (Report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, 1985), p. 71 The Control Of Pollution (Amendment) Bill, to tighten up the law against fly-tippers and stop illegal dumping of builders' rubble, was given an unopposed third reading in the Lords. The Times 5 July 1989, p. 13 There was the visible evidence of fly-tipping. A mound of rubbish all but obscured an electrical sub-station on which two local hospitals depended. Independent 23 Aug. 1988, p. 17