Ealing secret cameras to catch fly-tippers

21 March 2007

EALING Council is using secret cameras to catch people committing "major envirocrimes" such as fly-tipping on main roads.

The west London council said in a newsletter to residents: "To catch vandals and envirocriminals, cameras disguised as anything from tin cans to house bricks will instantly email images to the council's CCTV control centre."

A spokesman said: "We have three mobile disguised cameras at our disposal. They are deployed only where a major envirocrime issue has been identified, such as vandalism, graffiti and serial, large-scale fly-tipping.

"People who persistently dump their rubbish all hours of the day and night, every day of the week, are acting irresponsibly and blighting the borough."

Movement sensors trigger the cameras, which cost around £200 each.

Concerns have been raised that householders who regularly put out their bins on the wrong day could be filmed and treated as envirocriminals.

The council insisted that the cameras are intended to target major offenders, but did not rule out the possibility that householders might be caught.

However, a spokeswoman said the council was unlikely to come down hard on householders who mistakenly put out rubbish on the wrong day.

"We are not using disguised CCTV cameras to target residents who simply leave out black bags early for collection or allow them to spill on to the pavement. Where residents don't understand when their collection day is, our officers knock on doors to explain.

"We make no apology for taking the toughest action against those few who continue to blight our borough without any thought of the impact on the majority of residents."

Ealing is the latest council to use electronic technology, including cameras, to monitor waste disposal by homeowners. More than 30 councils have fitted microchips – knows as ‘bin bugs’ – to wheelie bins which can weigh the amount of rubbish thrown out.

Some councils have also hidden CCTV cameras inside bins.

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