Fly tipping is when someone dumps waste illegally onto someone else so that someone else has to deal with its proper diposal instead of the culprit. This costs money for the victim, especially since the Landfill tax was introduced. This whole problem would not exist if there was a market for recyclable rubbish. The majority of domestic rubbish comes from food packaging. A much better way to deal with rubbish would be to replace the landfill tax with a packaging levy. This would make it more economic to produce biodegradeable alternatives, and the funds could also be used to reward the return of materials for recycling that would otherwise be worthless rubbish. Don't confuse this with toxic waste though, the Love Canal was an example of contaminated land from industrial waste, not the largely inert domestic waste.

Lionel Tiger, Birmingham,

Landfill sites can be very polluting, particularly to water tables and run off into rivers or pollution of residential or agricultural land. Google 'Love Canal' for a worst case. This severely limits the number and size of locations in the UK suitable for landfill and so we need to reduce the amount of waste that goes to landfill. Ideally people would adopt better habits and recycle more without needing the stick of reduced rubbish collections, but the UK still lags a long way behind many countries. Those who fly tip are cheating on the attempt to reduce waste going into landfill and spoiling the country but landfilling at the current rate is not sustainable long term.

Mr Turner, Warwickshire, UK

Erika -

It's taking your trash out for a dark night trip and dumping it by the road side or on farm land, instead of disposing of it legitimately... and, it seems, more and more expensively.

Don't know the origins. It may be from the expression 'on the fly', which I think means not quite legal, combined with tipping, which is as it indicates.

Peter Junkkdotcom , Ross-on-Wye, UK