A years free Council Tax in Liverpool if you shop an irresponsible dog owner

Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson says residents who shop neighbours for leaving dog muck in the street will get their Council tax paid for a year

Anderson has announced he wants to offer a reward for anyone who helps in the criminal conviction of irresponsible owners

Speaking to Radio City - Mayor Anderson said: "I'm getting frustrated by the amount of litter on the streets. I'm fed up of walking around different parts of the city and seeing dock muck littering and mum's pushing prams and dodging dog muck in certain parts of the city and it's unacceptable"

"People are living in it, and what I'm saying to people is, if you see someone doing it and you can get me evidence, we'll covertly watch people and if it leads to a prosecution then the money we get from the fine will go towards your Council tax"

In addition, the Mayor has asked for an emphasis on tackling residents who choose not to recycle or manage their waste in a responsible way, or who let their dogs foul the streets.

It is estimated that 21,000 tonnes of recyclable goods are needlessly going to landfill each year 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.

Mayor Anderson said: “While we have made huge progress on improving recycling over the last few years, responsible citizens are being undermined by some residents who are putting waste in the wrong bin.

“We recently had a case in Old Swan where an entire day’s recycling collections were so contaminated with non-recyclable items that the load was rejected at the recycling plant. Instead, it had to be sent to landfill, doubling the cost of processing and disposing of the waste and hitting council tax payers in the pocket. This example shows how the efforts of all the residents who do the right thing can be undermined by the minority who choose not to.

“We have a challenging recycling target of 55 percent to hit by 2020 and so we have to think creatively about what we can do. 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.”