THE Capital’s environmental wardens have been credited with helping trigger a huge reduction in fly-tipping.

The number of complaints to the council has dropped by almost 2000 a year following the introduction of the wardens.

The expansion of the city’s network of community recycling centres is also believed to have helped tackle the problem.

The number of incidents reported to the local authority has dropped by a quarter, from 7733 in 2003 to 5763 last year.

However, dealing with an average of 15 fly-tipping incidents a day costs the council more than 200,000 a year. The local authority was also warned today that it risked undoing its own good work by introducing charges for its uplift service.

Environmental wardens can impose a 50 fixed penalty for fly-tipping. In cases that go to court, the fines can be up to 40,000 with the possibility of up to two years in prison.

Councillor Robert Aldridge, the city’s environment leader, said: “This reduction is testament to a greater awareness among residents and businesses of their responsibility to deal with their waste in an appropriate manner.

“The proactive work undertaken by the environmental wardens in relation to enforcement and education has had a major impact on the culture of illegal waste presentation.

“However, we must continue to get the message across that fly-tipping is a crime and that those found responsible could face a fixed penalty notice or, in the most serious cases, prosecution and a potential prison sentence.”

The council announced last month that householders are to be restricted to just one free special uplift - where bulky items are collected from the kerbside - per year. Any more will incur a 17.20 charge each time.

Mark Sydenham, spokesman for Friends of the Earth Edinburgh, said: “A reduction is obviously good news and the community recycling facilities have worked well. I think there is now a greater awareness of where unwanted items can be deposited or recycled.

“However, the council needs to realise that not everyone can physically get to the central recycling areas, so introducing charging for bulky uplifts is a retrograde step.

“It will lead to more instances of fly-tipping and undermines all the good work done so far.”

Mark McInnes, the city’s Tory environment spokesman, called for more recycling facilities to be made available. He said: “The biggest gripes I see from my mail bag are from people who are desperate to recycle but can’t because the facilities are not easily at their disposal.”

THE death of a man who was found lying in a busy street in broad daylight is now being treated as suspicious.

An incident room has been set up by police who earlier this week thought that James Glendenning, 29, had simply fallen.

However, after investigating his injuries they believe he may have been the victim of an assault and are appealing for more witnesses to come forward.

Mr Glendenning was discovered on Wednesday, July 4 on London Road at 1.40pm. He eventually died from his injuries six days later in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

Police are anxious to trace a student nurse who was thought to be first on the scene as Mr Glendenning lay on a patch of grassland on London Road opposite Windsor Street.

Detective Inspector Richard Thomas, based at Gayfield, said they had already spoken to one key witness and now wanted to speak to the female to establish more of a picture.

He said: “It’s currently being treated as suspicious death which is to say we do not know he has come to be in this position.

“There are certain aspects that look as if it may been an assault and we’ve yet to establish that.

“It was presumably a busy area and at 1.40pm but we don’t think he was there for terribly long.”

DI Thomas said the police were not currently treating it as a murder investigation.

He added: “There appears to be injuries on the body which are not consistent with the case that he had fallen.

“We would urge anyone who knows Mr Glendenning or thinks they may have seen him prior to his admission to hospital to get in touch.

“We need to build up a picture of what he was doing and who he was with in the 24-hour period before he was discovered lying injured in London Road.

“The young woman, who we think was a student nurse, is described as in her 20s with short dark hair and a yellow T-shirt.”

On Wednesday police are due to approach people who may have been in the same place a fortnight before to gain more information.

DI Thomas said it was also possible passers-by may not have realised Mr Glendenning was dying and they may have thought he was sleeping on the grassy area.

Mr Glendenning was described as white, 5ft 10in, slim, clean shaven with long, brown hair.

The student nurse assisted the dead man until an ambulance arrived, but at that point left the scene.

Police believe she may hold key information.

“We’ve spoken to one man already who came on the scene shortly after,” DI Thomas added. “We think the young woman may have known how long he was there for or be able to tell us more.

“We would appeal to any members of the public who may have seen anything to contact us on 0131 311 3131 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

(06-14) 08:20 PDT NEW YORK, (AP) —

Domestic crude oil swept above $67 a barrel Thursday on continuing concerns the refining industry is not producing enough gasoline to meet summer driving demand.

That worry, which drove gas prices to record levels last month, was exacerbated by Wednesday’s government report that showed refinery utilization fell last week, and that gasoline inventories did not grow.

“This is no longer an aberration, it is an industry-wide disaster,” wrote Peter Beutel, an analyst at Cameron Hanover, in a research note.

Light, sweet crude for July delivery rose 91 cents to $67.17 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gasoline futures for July added 5.14 cents to $2.2067, also on the Nymex. Both contracts also gained Wednesday, after the Energy Department’s report was released.

Retail gas prices, which often trail the futures market, fell again. The average national price of a gallon of gas fell 1.1 cents overnight to $3.043, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Prices peaked at $3.227 a gallon in late May.

In other Nymex trading, heating oil futures rose 3.25 cents to $1.9945 a gallon while natural gas prices gained 13.9 cents to $7.747 per 1,000 cubic feet.

The July Brent crude contract rose 90 cents to $70.84 on the ICE Futures exchange in London.

“People are concerned that gasoline inventories remain low,” said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy and Economic Research Inc., in Winchester, Mass.

Refinery utilization, which had been expected to grow by 0.8 percent, fell 0.4 percent to 89.2 percent, the second straight weekly decline, according to the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration. Most analysts say refineries should be using 94 percent to 95 percent of their capacity at this time of year.

“There were general expectations that gasoline inventories would continue to build … but the market didn’t see it,” said Victor Shum, an energy analyst with Purvin & Gertz Inc. in Singapore.

Gas inventories were unchanged at 201.5 million barrels for the week ended June 8, the EIA report said. Analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires expected inventories to rise by 2 million barrels.

The refining industry is still struggling to recover from the effects of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita two years ago, analysts said.

“It suggests that a number of refineries were severely affected by the big hurricanes, and that no one told anybody,” Beutel wrote. “The storms cast a stronger shadow than envisioned.”

Based on the fact that utilization levels are 6 percent below historic averages, the EIA numbers suggest that 5 percent to 6 percent of refinery capacity may have been more damaged than anyone suspected, Beutel wrote.

But Lynch thinks the issue is not damage from the hurricanes, but deferred maintenance. When the storms hit the Gulf Coast, refiners elsewhere had to pick up the slack. Many put off planned maintenance until this year.

“Refineries are having a hard time coming back,” said Lynch.

Adding to their woes are environmental regulations requiring refiners to remove sulfur from their products. To do this, refiners must use more equipment.

“It seems like the added complexity is causing problems,” Lynch said.

Reports Thursday that two Corpus Christi, Texas, refineries were coming back online did little to assuage the market’s general sentiment that refineries are behind, Lynch said.

Man Energy analyst Edward Meir noted one overlooked positive in the EIA report: Gasoline production increased slightly, even though refinery utilization fell. That suggests, Meir wrote, that while refineries are using less of their overall capacity, more of the capacity that is in use is being shifted from making other products to producing gasoline.

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Associated Press Writers Pablo Gorondi, in Budapest, and Derrick Ho, in Singapore, contributed to this report.