A rubbish dumper was told to expect jail for leaving five heaps - with one including asbestos.
City council officers spent weeks tracking down father-of-two Nathan Cossey who defaced land near Colwick Park.
He faced city magistrates and admitted depositing waste between August 11 and 28 last year. They could have jailed him for six months.
But presiding JP Sharon Holden, who sat with two colleagues, told him: "We consider these matters exceed a sentence of six months.
"We believe the fly tipping was of a persistent, serious, deliberate and dangerous nature."
Cossey will be sentenced by a judge at Nottingham Crown Court on November 28. On driving offences unrelated to the dumping, magistrates sent him to prison for 18 weeks.
Tamazin Wilson, prosecuting, said that "five large fly tips" were found on land known as Racecourse Road.
The first was seen on August 11 last year. It included fridge freezers, TVs and cardboard boxes
Another was found 30 metres away. Officers found a letter addressed to a house in Bartholomew Road, Nottingham which helped identify a customer of Cossey.
When officers returned to the dumping site ten days later, they saw a van driven by Cossey, 32, of Minver Crescent, Nottingham.
"The driver said he was looking for scrap metal because people fly tip there and they had a scrap licence," said Miss Wilson. Cossey said that he had got onto the site by driving over a plastic bollard.
Later more heaps of rubbish appeared. These included asbestos, a water tank and builder's waste.
When questioned by officers, he said "he thought he would try his luck. He asked if they would just forget about it," Miss Wilson added.
The clean-up involved specialists and cost £5,332. The council applied for him to pay this as well as £1,306 costs.
Ran Johal, mitigating, told the court: "They were not major hazardous chemicals of the kind that would be noxious or have a lasting effect on human or animal health."
He said that Cossey now has a job as a labourer on a London building site. He has two children and has been "a pillar of support for his partner."
Mr Johal added: "There is strong evidence that he was in the van and was seen when the waste was disposed of. He accepts full responsibility.
The council has been unable to trace a second man seen in Cossey's van.
