Cleaning up dumped waste has cost Caerphilly taxpayers as much as £500,000 over the last four years.
And Caerphilly County Borough Council has claimed just £10,000 back in fines since 2011, a Freedom of Information (FOI) request has revealed.
The FOI, sought by Plaid Cymru, shows the council had to deal with more than 7,700 incidents of fly-tipping between May 2011 and May 2015.
Last year the majority of fly-tipping took place on council land, with household waste and white goods the main rubbish found.
Construction rubbish was also high on the list, while other incidents include animal carcasses, asbestos and tyres.
Just 15 people were prosecuted in 2014/2015, despite there being a total of 2,043 incidents, but the council did issue 223 penalty notices.
Councillor Colin Mann, leader of the Plaid Cymru group on Caerphilly County Borough Council, said: “There is absolutely no excuse for fly-tipping. Many items can be taken to civic amenity sites and the minority involved need to show some public responsibility. Money spent on cleaning up and removing waste is not available to be spent on frontline services.
“I would urge people to report anyone involved in fly-tipping, take vehicle registration numbers and inform the council. The more individuals that are brought to book the better there is to reduce this very significant cost.
“I’m aware that surveillance cameras are used in an attempt to catch illegal dumping and it may be necessary to use them even more at hotspots. The council must crackdown hard, particularly on those dumping potentially dangerous materials like asbestos.”
The authority said there had been 1,618 incidents in 2011/12 and 1,479 in 2012/13. This rocketed to almost 2,609 in 2013/14 and fell back to 2,052 in the last financial year.
Last year the council began charging residents using certain sized vans and trailers up to £70 to dump waste at civic amenity sites.
Meanwhile in February’s budget the councillors decided to close civic amenity sites one day a week in a bid to save cash as part of their austerity drive.
Cabinet Member for the Environment, Cllr Nigel George, said, “Fly-tipping is a serious environmental crime, which costs the council a large amount of money to clear up and remove, and is certainly money that could be better spent on other things.
“Our enforcement team continues to work tirelessly to tackle environmental crime in our county borough, and has secured a large number of successful prosecutions for environmental offences including fly-tipping.
“The message is clear – anyone who thinks they can get away with fly-tipping or anything else of this nature should think again.”
We are part of the community and the council just administrates it. If you see it report it.
I saw a pile of commercial waste in a Rudry lane a few months ago and the same type of rubbish on the Lansbury ring road. I stopped and sifted through it but to no avail, I couldn’t find anything with an address on it. Next time on the other hand.
If you see it don’t turn away from it and then we won’t have this problem so much.