Thousands of fly-tipping incidents have been reported across Caerphilly County Borough in the past decade, with the council’s opposition leader suggesting a spike last year could be linked to more restrictions on household waste.

Freedom of Information Act disclosures show the council has recorded nearly 24,000 incidents of illegal waste dumping since 2015, including a peak of 3,590 last year.

“We said at the time that changes to waste collections, recycling rules and access to tips from February 2024 risked creating unintended consequences,” said Cllr Charlotte Bishop, leader of the council’s Plaid Cymru group, which obtained the figures.

“When it becomes harder, more confusing or more restrictive for people to dispose of waste legally, the impact does not disappear – it ends up dumped in lanes, woodland, riversides and communities across the county borough.”

Cllr Chris Morgan, the cabinet member responsible for waste management, said the Welsh Government had compelled councils to bring in tougher recycling rules, and believes residents from other areas are partly to blame for fly-tipping in Caerphilly.

He said the local authority is “struggling” to reach the nation’s new 70% recycling target and is “under pressure from the Welsh Government to change to what will be a very unpopular recycling scheme”.

Those changes will mean residents have to sort their recyclables at home and leave them out for collection in separate containers.

Other councils in the region have already brought in that ‘blueprint’ system, and Cllr Morgan said he had “no doubt it is fly-tipping from these boroughs that is blighting our communities and mountains”.

The council’s Plaid group has branded local fly-tipping a “crisis” and Cllr Bishop said the problem has both environmental and human costs.

“Residents in Caerphilly county are fed up seeing their communities repeatedly blighted by rubbish, black bags, furniture and waste dumped near homes and beauty spots,” she said.

“Residents deserve clean streets, protected green spaces and an approach that prevents this problem getting even worse.”

But Cllr Morgan’s comments suggest the council was effectively powerless to stop the introduction of more stringent recycling rules and targets.

“While we in Caerphilly continue our ‘quick win’ process to achieve extra percentage on top of our current 61% recycling figures, this Labour administration is worried that moving to a ‘blueprint’ service will increase fly tipping and street scene mess,” he said.

Cllr Morgan added he had written to the relevant minister in the new Plaid Cymru-controlled Welsh Government “to help us here” and ask her “whether they will be increasing the percentage, putting more pressure on local authorities like Caerphilly”.

He added residents “can really help us prove to Welsh Government that we can increase our percentage performance by keeping the current recycling method and making sure they recycle properly and put the right item in the right bin – this includes food in the food bin, not in refuse or recycling”.

The Freedom of Information disclosures also showed the borough wards with the worst fly-tipping problems over the past decade were St Martins, Ynysddu, and St Cattwg.