Public warned they will be fined for fly tipping at Acton recycling site

Ealing council has put down £1,000 fine notices for fly tipping after public misuse Traid textile banks

At the textile bins on Bromyard Avenue in Acton, intended only for collection of textiles for reuse as second hand clothes, the public have been fly tipping all kinds of materials that are not textiles.

Sofas, tyres, mattresses, and a pallet of bricks are among the items which have been dumped around the textile bins.

Traid, a charity retailer which collects and sells second hand clothes, has worked with several London councils for 26 years, collecting clothes and shoes. A spokesperson for Traid has said they have never experienced these levels of fly tipping.

The charity collects textiles from the Bromyard site on behalf of the London Borough of Ealing. Now the Council has spray painted notices on the pavement with the warning: “Fly tipping £1000 fine”, in an effort to stop people from doing this.

However, Ealing councillor Andrew Steed thinks the Council needs to be doing more. The Liberal Democrat councillor told The Chiswick Calendar: “I think the message from Ealing Council needs to be much stronger – there needs to be more, bigger signage stressing that environmental crimes are being committed and that fines will be imposed of £1000.”

One of the notices from Ealing council

Beside the rubbish which is just being dumped, the bins are being used a great deal for the desired purpose. Traid have increased the number of days they empty the bins in order to keep up with the amount of textiles being dropped there.

The charity said they were originally collecting three days a week, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. They added a weekend day and as of this month, have been collecting daily.

It is irritating if you try to recycle responsibly, load up the car and arrive to find recycling bins full to overflowing, but Traid say they are keeping on top of things. They confirmed that over a 30 day period from 14 July the bins were only at capacity once.

Some residents have called for the instillation of cameras to make sure that the collections are frequent enough.

A spokesperson from Traid said:

“It is a shame that the misbehaviour of some impacts so badly on the goodwill actions of the majority within the community”.