A man has been fined £240 after his details were found among a large fly-tip in the Duxford countryside.

Several residents took to Twitter to alert South Cambs District Council of the fly-tipping on the bank holiday Monday in August – the dumped items included home and garden furniture, plastic boxes, cushions and electrical equipment.

By just after 9am the following day, the council’s environmental health enforcement officer had started an investigation and the fly-tip was removed.

By Wednesday that week, enquiries had confirmed the Cambridge resident whose details were among the rubbish remained at the address and a Fixed Penalty Notice was issued.

This was issued under the ‘duty of care’ regulations which set out the responsibilities people have when disposing of waste – namely, ensuring it does not harm the environment.

The Cambridge resident paid the fine after his appeal was rejected – as he was not able to account for how rubbish with his name on ended up in a large fly-tip in the countryside.

Each householder has a legal responsibility to ensure that if they have waste taken away by a contractor, that person has the correct licences to carry waste.

This means residents can be sure their waste will end-up an authorised disposal site. The Environment Agency has a list of legitimate waste carriers on their website.

South Cambridgeshire District Council’s lead cabinet member for environmental services and licensing, Cllr Brian Milnes, said: “We hate fly-tipping as much as our communities do. We will always try and track down whoever dumps waste in the countryside and that is exactly what we have done here.

“My personal thanks to those residents who report fly-tipping – they appreciate that we all have a shared responsibility to look after our district.”

Duxford cllr Peter McDonald, added: “Residents have been plagued with fly-tipping and this is an example of the council responding promptly, Thank you to officers.”

If your waste is fly tipped by you or by someone else on your behalf, you could face a fixed penalty notice of up to £400. If you leave items beside street bins and recycling banks, on the floor of communal bin areas or outside closed recycling centres and charity shops, this is all fly-tipping.

Everyone has a legal ‘duty of care’ to ensure their household or business waste is disposed of correctly. You can be prosecuted even if your waste is fly-tipped by someone else on your behalf. Always use a registered waste carrier, which you can verify on the Environment Agency website, to provide a skip or collect your rubbish so you can be confident that it will not end up dumped.

If you witness someone fly-tipping, call the police on 999 and report it as an environmental crime in progress. Report fly-tipping that you come across to the council at www.scambs.gov.uk/report.