The true extent of flytipping in and around Oxford has been revealed after the Oxford Mail found enough trash in an hour to create this down-at-heel living room.

Mail reporter Giles Sheldrick set out in a van to investigate the problem of illegal dumping after new figures showed that flytipping in Oxfordshire had increased by 60 per cent in a year, an average of 16 incidents a day.

And it did not take us long to discover the impact this is having on our environment.

As our pictures show, within 60 minutes of leaving our headquarters at Osney Mead we had found illegally dumped household and commercial waste in hedgerows, ditches and fields in and around the city.

Our less-than-salubrious haul included a television, DVD player, settee, armchair, patio table, chairs and rotting carpets.

First stop was a country road between Stanton St John and Barton and it proved to be rich pickings. A huge mound of dumped household waste included guttering, a double mattress, carpets, children's clothing, storage cupboards and black bin bags stuffed with rotting food.

And just 250 yards down the road we found a settee and an armchair in a hedge.

Mark Leonard, Oxfordshire County Council's waste enforcement officer, said: "I can't say I am surprised, fly-tipping can be cleared up and then take place the very next day.

"It's irresponsible, antisocial and lazy but there is always a small minority of the population that thinks it is either beyond or above the law.

"It's a nuisance, costs the taxpayer money to clear up and is a problem for all of society."

Our next stop was a layby on Oxford's Eastern Bypass between Sainsbury's at Heyford Hill and Abingdon Road, where we found a landslide of waste invisible to the passing traffic. Shopping trolleys, vats of catering oil, TVs, paint barrels and wine bottles had been brazenly tossed down the bank.

Those convicted of flytipping face a maximum fine of £50,000 and five years imprisonment.

Despite the fact people had taken time and effort to drive to these spots to ditch their waste, the safe and legal disposal of household rubbish at council-run depots like Redbridge, where our low rent living room was dumped, actually costs nothing.

There is a small fee levied for the disposal of commercial and hazardous waste.

Our last haul included a garden shed door and a patio table and chairs from a ditch at Redbridge Hollow, ironically just yards away from the Redbridge recycling depot.