Mayor considers council tax exemption for whistleblowers on waste

Residents who help catch dog owners not picking up their pet's mess would not have to pay their council tax bill under new proposals to be considered in Liverpool.

The city's mayor Joe Anderson has mooted the idea in a drive to crackdown on environmental crimes and illegal dumping in Liverpool.

One idea he has tasked his council officers to look at is giving residents a free year without council tax if they film or take photos to help identify fly-tippers, litterbugs or irresponsible dog owners.

The mayor said: "Can we reward those residents that let us know who is flytipping, whose dogs are fouling our streets and or are not recycling properly? Should we look at making it compulsory to recycle?

"We need to look seriously at these measures and more to encourage and reward civic pride.

"I have asked officers to come up with a series of enforcement measures that we can use to drive the required change in behaviour in those residents that fail to responsibly manage their waste and for the Cabinet member to bring a report setting out in detail the steps we will take to tackle poor waste management and other environmental crime."

Mr Anderson also wants to increase recycling rates in the city and other possible proposals include the introduction of larger recycling sacks, an expansion of weekly recycling services for city centre apartment blocks, piloting weekly recycling, work to repair and upgrade the four foot alleyways serving 28,000 terraced properties and doubling the number of teams tackling fly tipping.

It is estimated 21,000 tonnes of recyclable goods are needlessly going to landfill each year in Liverpool because residents are placing it in a purple bin or black sacks rather than the blue recycling bin.

Every tonne of residual waste from the purple bins costs twice as much to treat as recyclable waste, meaning an additional bill of around £1.2 million per year for council tax payers.