00:00We're here at the East Church Gap on the Isle of Sheppey, which became a fly-tipping spot in 2020 after a local house fell into the sea.
00:07Shortly afterwards, dozens of lorries a day were seen dumping rubbish onto the wreckage.
00:12You can see here that there's different layers in the pile of rubbish.
00:15That's because when the lorries dumped their trash here, they would dump a layer of earth on top of it to cover up their tracks.
00:21As you look across the beach, you can see different layers of tyres, of plastic and building rubble depending which lorries dumped what.
00:28Right here, the smell is terrible from all the rubbish that's been dumped.
00:33On my dog walks, I see lots of rubbish and quite regularly here we have regular rubbish cleaning, which is really sad.
00:41It used to be like, when I moved back here when I was like three or four, I used to walk up here with my family and all that and it was just, it was so beautiful.
00:48But now it's just completely ruined and it upsets me a bit.
00:52But what's the driving force behind dumping like this?
00:55Could the problem be the high cost of getting rid of waste legitimately?
00:58Local farmer Paul Vickery told us that most of the waste dumped on his land is tipped by licensed waste companies.
01:04They're generally licensed tippers, but it's still cheaper not to go to the tip and just chuck it in a gateway.
01:13To find out about the high cost of getting rid of rubbish legally, we spoke to Perry Kemp, who runs Rubbish Master in Herne Bay.
01:20Perry told us that the things you see fly-tipped most often are the things the council charges most for at the local dumps.
01:26Tyres, fridges, mattresses and sofas. They're the main things.
01:35The licenses Perry needs to do his job cost around £6,000 a year, and yet there are no mandatory checks to make sure companies like his are operating legitimately.
01:44If you is a cab driver, once a year you have to take your cab to the council and get it inspected.
01:52Why can't they do that to people taking rubbish?
01:55How often do they check you at the moment?
01:57They don't.
01:58Whilst greater oversight could help prevent future crimes, it would still be too late for the people of Shappie, who've been waiting nearly two years to see their beach cleaned.
