The owners of a Moray estate will be forced to pay hundreds of pounds to remove a collection of fridges and freezers dumped on the property.
The five electrical goods were left on the Altyre Estate in Forres during the week.
Factor of Altyre Estate, Ed Dunbar, said that a member of the public contacted him when they found the appliances abandoned just off the main Forres road.
“We contacted environmental health as soon as we saw the appliances dumped and they told us that they couldn’t accept it because they are commercial products,” he said.
“It seems like it was a catering refurbishment van driver who dumped it.”
Mr Dunbar checked with other members of the community to see if he could track down the person responsible.
He said: “After investigating it, I discovered that they have previously been turned away from the dump so they must have panicked and saw this place as an ideal spot because it’s out of the way.”
Mr Dunbar asked Moray Council if local authority workers could come and collect the electrical waste.
But he was informed that it would need to be a recycling company tasked with the collection instead which will come at a cost of £1,100.
Mr Dunbar said it was not the first time kitchen appliances had been dumped on the estate. The factor was also aware of a washing machine abandoned on the site earlier this year.
He added: “These people must see this location as a good place to dump their unwanted goods.
“The route in is usually blocked off by a barrier but they were down due to the ongoing extraction of timber.”
Moray has become a fly-tipping hotspot in recent years, with the woodlands often affected.
In 2017, fly-tipping cost Moray residents over £10,000, while private landowners incurred further clean-up costs.