Sheffield residents speak out over fly-tippers who hijacked community litter pick

Community group Friends of Whiteways organised the community litter pick for Saturday on Whiteways, Earl Marshall Road in Fir Vale.

They collected dozens of bags of rubbish leaving them in two pre-arranged pick up points to be collected by council staff.

However, over the weekend fly-tippers added items such as sofas, mattresses and furniture to the already sizable heap, leaving a mound of trash up to 50 metres long.

Star readers have now taken to Facebook to voice their support for the group and to criticise the fly-tippers for taking advantage of their goodwill.

One reader said: “Sometimes you try to help and people take advantage. Hopefully this doesn't stop the ones doing good.” John Fatajor added: “It is not fair on those hard working true Page Hall people.”

Gavin Mackinder criticised fly-tippers for “tarnishing all the good work” of the “people trying to do good for the community.”

Litter pick organiser Usha Blackham, of Friends of Whiteways, said it had been a ‘nightmare’ and vowed to remove the remaining litter.

She added: “We really feel bad about it but we were just trying to help the community. It was coming from a good place.”

The group had arranged with the council to collect the rubbish at 1pm on Saturday, but in the end they didn’t arrive until gone 9pm. They then removed one pile of rubbish but had to leave the pile opposite the nursing home which they came back for on Sunday but couldn’t fit the sheer amount of it in their van.

Ian Ashmore, head of environmental regulation for the council, said: “It appears that the extra accumulation of household waste is the result of some serious local miscommunication and blatant fly-tipping marring their hard work, which is really disappointing.”