I think everyone who reads this blog knows well and understands my utter contempt for flytipping and the scumbags that do it. Such crime is not only offensive, it costs local authorities a huge amount to clean up, and shows utter disrespect for both the environment we share, and the communities in which we live.
Today, a story comes to me from a good friend in Chuckery, Walsall. I know that’s off my usual patch, but she has specifically asked me to cover this, and I can see why.
Just when you think society’s scum couldn’t get any lower, they confound even your very lowest expectations.
On Sunday afternoon (2nd June 2013), at about 5:30pm, my friend was walking down Walhouse Road, near the bus stop on the junction with Charlotte Street, just by the open patch of land there locally regarded as the village green.
This is what she found – ten 25 litre Hydrochloric acid drums, dumped on the green, a space on which kids play on days like today.
As the lady was taking pictures, a passerby asked what she was doing. After an explanation, he left to phone the authorities.
The drums had gone by 7:45pm, so all credit to whoever removed them. However, it takes a special kind of arsehole to dump containers bearing the residue of strong, caustic liquid on a children’s play area, especially considering the inquisitive nature of young lads in particular. It’s very fortunate that nobody appears to have been burned. Hydrochloric acid at these strengths is nasty stuff.
The reason I run the pictures here, apart from the general alert to a particularly nasty piece of environmental crime, is that the chemical was packaged and sold by a local company, from Highgate, in Birmingham, and bore batch numbers. We’re hoping a passing Environmental Health tech or other expert can use the information to trace who the acid was bought by, and therefore find the idiots who flytipped the drums.
Please, if you know anything about this, saw something, or have any idea where the drums may have come from, please do contact either Walsall Streetpride, or Walsall Police.
Being in the industry (chemicals, not flytipping…), manufacturers or distributors must have their ID on any containers. We get calls from police forces & councils now & again as our containers have been left behind by lazy contractors, but again the batch number will help us trace to whom they were sold & ultimately liable. Tracing these gits is possible.
Northfields Way, closer to home, is getting much, much worse. Not a week goes by now without some trade waste. Lately we’ve enjoyed the remains of a fitted bathroom, old TVs & blank CDs. Each time I’ve reported it, & gone as far to suggest the road does not need to be open past the junction with Allerdale Road. The council tell me vehicular access is required to Coopers Bridge, which is the biggest crap I’ve ever heard. Add the anti-social behaviour, road races & sexual shenanigans, something needs to be done.
Idiots – just a few drops of that stuff on bare skin can cause serious burns, and in the eyes – doesn’t bear thinking about . . .
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