Tipping the balance

Fly-tipping has become a real thorn in the side of local authorities in Britain.  The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) estimates that councils are having to spend £100 a minute to keep up with the tide of waste, which is quite literally spilling out across the country in fields, lay-bys and even on the road side.  What is encouraging from a CCTV point of view is that local authorities are starting to look at mobile CCTV systems - which can be deployed rapidly to the location of a problem - as a method of capturing images of the perpetrators of this illegal dumping so they can be taken to court and fined.  Users like Coventry City Council, which has already been able to successfully prosecute culprits as a result of this CCTV evidence, believe this will act as a real deterrent to others.  As an added disincentive some councils are even publishing pictures of the prime offenders in their local papers.