Sheffield fly-tipping: Anger as good neighbours' efforts to clean River Don undone in a day by fresh dumping

What was meant to be a moment of feel-good volunteering by a Middlewood neighbourhood was undone in a matter of minutes last night.

A heroic effort by 10 neighbours and friends to clean up the River Don off Winn Gardens, running along Claywheels Lane, saw enough rubbish pulled out to fill seven builders’ bags on Monday (December 30).

However, residents have woken up today to find someone has put all their efforts to waste overnight by fly-tipping piles of more rubbish into the river.

Winn Gardens resident Jordan Darby, 38, who organised the original clean up on Monday, says he was up early for a morning walk today when he came across the sad sight.

He told The Star: “I went out on Monday and came across all this fly-tipping. It had been thrown in the river recently.

“Honestly, it just made me so angry. I grew up here and the little waterfall is where we scattered my dad’s ashes, and it’s just been treated so poorly.

“But after a word with my missus, she said there was no point being negative about it. So I put a post out on Facebook and TikTok saying what I was doing, got my shorts and my swim shoes on, and headed down.”

By the end of the day, nine others from the neighbourhood and Jordan’s social media following had come out to join the clean up. Cushions, nappies and leftover Christmas dinners were just some of the things fished out the River Don by the volunteers.

However, the sense of satisfaction was not to last.

Jordan said: “I got up for an early morning walk today (December 31) and I went to go have a look at all the work we had done.

“Instead, I was greeted by all this fresh fly-tipping dumped back in the river.

“It just makes me so upset, but you have to try not be negative.

“What I reckon has happened is, because it’s all household waste, someone will have put up an advert offering to empty people’s wheelie bins early after Christmas for cash, then just dumped it here.

“They won’t get away with it. I was a scrap man once myself and know all the regulations. We’ve called the council and the police, and have video evidence of it in the river.

“Thanks to everyone who came out to help with the original clean up.”

The law in England & Wales is anyone who pays someone else to take away their rubbish is held responsible for checking if they are licensed to dispose of waste. If not. and the waste is illegally dumped, both the flytipper and the person whose waste it is can both be prosecuted and fined.