Fly-tipping in Wishaw took an unexpected turn this week, when two trailers filled with rubbish were dumped on an industrial estate.
The vehicles were left on Netherton Industrial Estate with a cheeky message attached to one of the trailers stating the mess hadn’t in fact been dumped and to call Peter Brady, the alias of TV’s The Invisible Man.
Wishaw councillor Bob Burgess told Lanarkshire Live: “We tried to call the number on the off chance it might be correct but it didn’t even ring.
“As someone who remembers the Invisible Man, I realised that they had just dumped the mess. It’s rather cheeky to just leave the mess there.
“We’ve contacted the council to get it removed but it’s so frustrating.
“This is a massive amount of waste it could be into the thousands of pounds, the units will need to be emptied, probably by hand. The two units will need to be broken up and taken away.
“The scourge of fly-tipping is now everywhere in North Lanarkshire. The council need to act more aggressively against the perpetrators of this crime.
“Wishaw has been blighted by fly-tipping for years. This include our main streets, housing estates, country roads, farmers land and car parks.
“We have people who use their own gardens as dumps, we have shop owners who pour oil down the main road drains, it’s got to stop or we will be swimming in a sea of rubbish. A sea created by we, the people.
The dumped trucks at the industrial estate is the latest in a long list of fly-tipping incidents across Wishaw with Councillor Burgess being left frustrated at the mess being left around the town.
He added: “The council’s waste solution teams are under pressure to give a service which they do not have a big enough workforce for, their budget has been cut year on year.
“We cannot nip this in the bud, it has grown into a massive destructive beast.
“There are good people who on a regular basis band together to clean up parks, wooded areas and river banks, there are good people who recycle their waste and we are thankful for them.
“What would happen if they had the same attitude of those who don’t care?”
A North Lanarkshire Council spokesperson said they were investigating the incident along with the police and the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA).
The spokesperson added: “Unfortunately using vehicles to dump large quantities of waste is being seen increasingly across Scotland. We are investigating the incident in Wishaw including looking at CCTV footage in the local area and across North Lanarkshire to identify the movement of the lorries and those responsible for dumping them.
“We believe the lorries were abandoned some time over the Easter holiday weekend, and we would ask anyone with information about this incident to contact the council on 0345 143 0015.
“The costs incurred in removing these trailers and disposing of the resulting waste could has cost the council thousands of pounds, which would have to be diverted away from key critical front line services such as social care and education.”
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