Handyman hit with steep penalties for parking lot crime: 'A blight'

One man ignored the fact that a car park is for leaving vehicles, not trash. 

His actions at a Cambridgeshire village car park have resulted in a four-figure fine, Cambridgeshire Live reported. 

Local Environmental Crime officers discovered the man's fly-tipping (as it's called in the U.K.) after several reports concerning the waste buildup. 

Those authorities found several homeowners who paid the worker known as MSH Handyman to haul their trash, but he didn't have any transfer documentation or a license to handle it. 

Instead of finding an appropriate landfill, he illegally dumped those loads in the Eversden Recreation Ground car park. 

While some culprits may hope to save on gas and time by avoiding a drive to a landfill, getting caught becomes more costly in the end. 

In this case, the handyman was fined £2,000 ($2,700), given a victim surcharge of £800 ($1,080), and forced to pay the full costs of £1,096.33 ($1,480), bringing his charges to over £4,000 ($5,404).

However, one unimpressed commenter referred to the fine as "Another lenient sentence."

Someone else responded, "[He] should be given several hundred hours of community service clearing up fly-tipping sites. Get them to tidy up their own mess."

"Fly-tipping is a blight on our beautiful landscape, damaging our environment and costing taxpayers to clean up," Councillor Natalie Warren Green, lead cabinet member for the environment for South Cambridgeshire District Council, told Cambridgeshire Live.

Should taxpayers help pay to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? We should pay for all of it 👍 We should pay some but not all 💸 Corporations should foot the bill 🏭 Charities should pay for it 🙏 Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.

The York Daily Record reported that American taxpayers dish out $11.5 billion annually for litter cleanup. In addition, the U.K.'s Environment Agency estimated the annual economic loss related to waste crime is £924 million ($1.2 billion), per Clarity.

Chemical leaks from old appliances, nasty smells, and pest invasions add to the fallout from improperly dumped waste. Plus, deteriorating garbage emits the heat-trapping gases carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. An overheating planet is a growing problem that has caused more devastating weather patterns and threats to biodiversity.

Trash blighting the landscape can make once beautiful residential areas and parks unrecognizable. Homeowners can also lose money from declining property values, especially when a backyard becomes a trash dump.

Luckily, anyone can take local action against illegal dumping by reporting incidents near their home or public areas. 

U.K. residents should also follow Warren Green's advice to check "credentials on the Environment Agency's public register [and] receive written documentation from" anyone handling your trash. Plus, knowing your recycling options helps.

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