There were sleepless nights recently for a pair of mattress dumping fly-tippers in Barking and Dagenham, as they were both fined following a council sting operation.

The pair received fines totalling an eye-watering £1,200, with one receiving a £400 fine and the other receiving two fines totalling £800.

Shockingly, one of the people fined owns a local furniture shop which sells mattresses, whilst the other was identified by their own tenant who lives nearby.

Both were identified following appearances on the council produced web-series the Wall of Shame, which since its inception in August 2018, has amassed over 320,000 views and seen many of the borough’s fly-tippers caught and fined.

Added to this were two other men who received £400 fines for dumping bags of waste onto the street.

The news comes after a spate of bed related fly-tipping, with illegally dumped mattresses and bed frames blighting many fly-tip hotspots in the borough.

To combat this, the council is sending out letters with photos of the fly-tippers spotted in the act by CCTV cameras. It is hoped that this will lead to concerned residents coming forward and more fly-tippers being identified.

Cllr Margaret Mullane, Cabinet Member for Enforcement and Public Safety, said: “It’s great to see that another four fly-tippers have been identified and fined – they’ll have learned a very expensive lesson for something that’s really very simple – don’t use our streets as your own private tip.

“In Barking and Dagenham, we take a zero-tolerance approach to fly-tipping, and we’re doing everything in our power to stop it, including sending letters, producing the Wall of Shame and sorting through waste to find pieces of rubbish that could lead to us identifying culprits.”

Another council operation recently saw over £24,000 in fines being issued to people fly-tipping on Gale Street, Dagenham. The tippers were using the spot to chuck their unwanted bulky waste from their cars; however, a Barking and Dagenham Council CCTV camera was there to spot them in the act and catch their number plates. In total, over 60 FPNs (Fixed Penalty Notices) were handed out, with the vast majority of those caught being residents of the borough.

The current fine for littering in Barking and Dagenham is £150 and the fine for fly-tipping is £400.

Residents are encouraged to take their bulky waste and recycling to the Frizlands Lane tip, or book to have it collected via the council’s website.