EVERY day the council's flytip crews scour the streets for illegally dumped piles of rubbish.

Their daily battle to clear roads and pavements of builders' rubble, fridges, televisions and mattresses costs the taxpayer thousands of pounds a month.

A week after the Guardian launched our Shop a Flytipper campaign, we found out what it was really like to be part of the team who drive around the streets looking for dumped rubbish and picking it up.

On Tuesday, I joined a crew made up of Steve Mead, Alan "Spud" Murphy and their mascot Donald the Duck who is taped to the front of the truck.

Their patch is Leytonstone and they know it so well Steve says they could drive around the roads with their eyes shut.

Steve and Spud, who are based at the council's Low Hall depot in South Access Road, Walthamstow, know all the flytipping hotspots.

And, other than picking up dumped rubbish that has been reported to the council, they spend a lot of their ten-hour shift driving round the streets keeping an eye out for flytipped rubbish.

Within five minutes of getting in the truck with them, we have already stopped to pick up a broken chair and a pile of wood pieces left beside a wall. The next stop is to collect two waterlogged old mattresses left against a front garden wall in an otherwise tidy street.

One of Leytonstone's flytip hotspots is Sheridan Road and sure enough, as we turn into the street, we are greeted with the sight of a mound of dumped rubbish including a sofa, tyres, baby clothes, bags of dirt and rubble and wood.

Then it is on to hoist a large bath that has been left on the pavement.

It is hard, physical work picking up the rubbish and throwing it into the truck, which has to be emptied up to four times a day at the tip.

Steve, who has worked for the council for 39 years, said: "You do get immune to the things that get dumped, although they can smell pretty bad.

"People who do this are just lazy. They dump something, it gets cleared away, so they keep doing it.

"We do get spates of different things being dumped. On one day you will get about a dozen televisions being put out, the next day we will find lots of washing machines.

"It is almost like everyone seems to go out and buy a new TV at the same time and then dump their old one."

Steve and Spud are kept busy clearing their patch. They say it is difficult to prove that someone has illegally dumped rubbish but they would encourage residents to report flytippers.

Spud, who once found two sheep pelts in a pile of rubbish, said: "Flytipping makes a mockery of the council system. Sometimes you get a bit despondent but it is still an important job.

"If we did not do it, there would be rubbish and rats running around everywhere."