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Now there are spy cameras at rubbish tips
Last updated at 08:52am on 26.11.06
Spy cameras are being installed at household rubbish dumps to check what residents are throwing away and to fine those breaking recycling rules.
How do you feel about living in 'Big Brother' Britain? Are these cameras justified? Tell us in readers' comments below...
The sophisticated CCTV systems are capable of reading and storing car number plates to identify who is using the dump, how often, and what they are disposing of.
But human rights groups condemned the surveillance as an 'unjustifiable' way of tracking people's movements.
The Big Brother-style tactics come as the Government puts pressure on local councils to cut the amount of rubbish sent to landfill sites. But the fear is that extra surveillance will only lead to more illegal fly-tipping.
The Mail on Sunday has already exposed the electronic 'bugs' secretly planted in hundreds of thousands of household wheelie bins.
Now sophisticated internet-controlled cameras are being installed at waste sites across the country. Officially they are to improve security, but council chiefs admit they will also monitor who is visiting the tips.
Several councils also say they will use camera evidence to mount prosecutions - raising fears more householders will be taken to court over what they throw away.
Cameras have been installed in Buckinghamshire, Croydon, Somerset, Dundee and Hertfordshire, and more councils are planning to follow suit after the £80million-a-year Waste and Resources Action Programme quango suggested they use CCTV to 'check vehicles visiting <\[>dumps] repeatedly'.
In Hertfordshire about 30 cameras have been installed at dumps, allowing council officials to check vehicle registration plates.
The county's assistant waste manager Mark Simpkins told a trade magazine: "The monitoring systems are invaluable. We use them to analyse...who is using the centre, what is being thrown away and how often." But last night his boss John Wood dismissed privacy concerns, saying: "I have not made the connection between our household waste sites and the wider debate about Big Brother."
However, local councillor Pat Whittaker said: "We have been campaigning for CCTV to guard against street robberies and anti-social behaviour - we do not need it at the local tip. These Big Brother tactics might discourage people from taking their rubbish for proper disposal."
Buckinghamshire and Somerset and County Councils have also installed number plate recognition systems at their dumps. Buckinghamshire council documents admit: "This may lead to investigation and possibly prosecution'.
Cameras have been imposed after the Government last year introduced a penalty of £150 a tonne on local authorities that dump too much waste in landfill sites.
Last night, Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights group Liberty, said: "CCTV should only be used to protect high security installations - not to monitor a dump.
"This whole area is very poorly regulated. When you install an automatic number plate recognition system you are tracking people's movements.
"You need proper justification before you track people. I don't see how it is proportionate to use that kind of surveillance in the context of a recycling centre."
Reader views (10)
I think the emphasis should be on convincing, encouraging, educating, people about the importance of recycling. There hasn't been enough work done on this and it seems very rushed to jump into coercion. Not a way to engage people.
- Elisabet Lopez, London, UK, 27/11/2006 13:01
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Hounding local authorities for monitoring people to make sure they behave in an environmentally friendly way is irresponsible and short sighted. Britain already has the most surveillance in the world, this type of thing is much less sinister than what we've been living with for years. What we need to be asking is why British people need to be policed just to make them look after their own back yard.
- Carolyn Cross, UK, 27/11/2006 11:25
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I think money should be spent elsewhere, there is a huge problem with fly tipping and illegal waste dumping in this country, surely they should be tackling this as the goverment claims to be hot on environmental issues, this sort of penalty will only make this problem worse.
- Helen F, Kent, 27/11/2006 10:46
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I believe that it was an EU directive [imposing an arbitrary reduction in the amount of rubbish being sent to landfill sites] that has prompted Big Brother to move in on recycling centres. However as it provides an opportunity to raise additional revenue through fines, I doubt this government were reluctant to legislate. My point though is that control freaks run the EU, as well as the government of this country.
We will probably succeed in voting out out many of the control freaks residing in Westminster, despite the short commings of our first past the post [electoral] system but voting them out of the European parliament will not have the same effect because [apparently] the European Parliament has little power to resist legislation & regulation proposed by the [unelected] EU comissioners.
If we are to return historic freedoms to this country, if we are ever to reinstate a role for Common Sense... just removing this government will not be enough. We can only regain control of our destiny, if we are prepared to leave the European Union.
- Keith Simpson, Wareham, Dorset, GB, 27/11/2006 10:32
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In just six generations, Britain has gone from the greatest nation to one of the worst.
- Freddy, Tampa, Florida, 26/11/2006 22:28
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I think that Joseph Stalin would be have been pleased to see how this country has transformed into a corrupt police state.
But I don't blame Blair and his cronies, I blame the people who voted for them.
- P.Robinson, London, 26/11/2006 22:07
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I am so thankful that I live in America. It is foolishness like this that ran my great-grandfather out of Britain in the nineteeth century. Why don't you put some effort into catching the real criminals instead of someone throwing away an aluminum can?
Socialism is not only evil, it's bone-headedly stupid, too.
You're going to have more and more people storing up trash in their homes or just dumping it where there are no cameras - that is, if there is any place in Britain that does not have one!
What happened to the free men that stood alone against the Nazis in 1940 and '41?
- John Vercoe, River City, USA, 26/11/2006 15:28
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I have visited the UK several times but I don't think I will be returning.
Looks like your wonderful country is turning into George Orwells 1984 with BIG BROTHER watching your every move.
Can you imagine having to clean out a favorite uncles place after he passes on and being fined because he collected 20 years worth of newspapers and you had to make more than a few trips to the dump?
All the cameras in the world won't deter crime.
Good luck in your little slice of big brother hell!
John Ebert
Glendale, Arizona
- John Ebert, Glendale, Arizona, U.S.A., 26/11/2006 14:42
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Is this a joke?
Unless their society is free of violence, robbery, rape and abuse it would be stupid for them to pursue these types of things. The money spent on this should be put to better use by combatting real crime, &/or helping people in need. This is just stupid.
- Honey, USA, 26/11/2006 14:15
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David Icke has been predicting this kind of thing for years. If you guys don't wake up and do something now, you will never be free of it.
- Craig, Deerfield Beach Florida, 26/11/2006 11:00
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