Sympathy for fly tippers? Surely not.

Well my experience recently has made me think seriously about why people fly tip.

In January I had the sad responsibility of clearing the home of a loved one who died unexpectedly.

Amongst the items were rather a lot of medicines, which as far as I could ascertain from Google were legal, and a number of syringes unused and still in their sterile packaging.

As a responsible person I wanted to dispose of them safely and not leave them accessible to the general public. What happened next was unbelievable.

I first tried the pharmacist at Boots who very kindly took all the medicines but understandably could not take the needles as Boots do not have a ‘sharps’ container. 

I next tried the local GP who said the same and they were not allowed to anyway.

I next tried the local hospital in Romsey who said more or less the same, and when I joked that maybe she would prefer me to put them in the waste basket in the centre of Romsey, that I should phone the council. 

The receptionist kindly supplied me with the number and department to ask for. I followed her instructions to the letter but then the problems really started.

On phoning the council I asked for the medical waste department and spoke to a Mrs Jobsworth who told me I had to go back to the GP surgery and ask for a letter to take back to the council to order a sharps container to put the needles in to be delivered to my house to be picked up over a week later by a specialist collection so the needles didn’t escape onto the streets.

I must be missing something here, as all I wanted to do was get the needles to a safe place away from the general public quickly.

Surely both the GP surgery and the hospital have sharps boxes.

I call on a sensible manager, somewhere, to change the business process that allows for the disposal of ‘sharps’ within 24 hours of them being discovered. It is not rocket science.

As to the heading of this article, I now wonder, if I wanted to get rid of hazardous household materials such as asbestos whether I would face similar problems.

The authorities should be biting my hand off to help me remove these materials from society and until they do there will always be fly tipping.

Businesses can pay as they are making a profit and disposal would be a tax deductible expense.

Please keep doubling the fines for illegal tipping but this needs sorting out for us responsible members of the public.

Name supplied