Waste and the material cycle

The last entry is a deposição ilegal, and it is where a familiar-looking English noun has to be set aside. « Deposition » exists, and it is busy elsewhere. In a court it is sworn evidence taken outside the hearing. In a laboratory it is a layer laid down on a surface. In geology it is what a river drops on the inside of a bend. In none of those is anybody tipping a mattress into a lane, and « the illegal deposition of waste » reads as a translation. The English for the offence is « fly-tipping », and the second half repays a look, because « to tip » here is neither the gratuity nor the point of anything. It is the old sense of tilting a load until it slides out, the verb behind « a tipper lorry » and behind « the tip », which is what people in Britain still call the place they take their rubbish to. So the noun is « fly-tipping », the offender is « a fly-tipper », and the verb is « to fly-tip ». American writing says « illegal dumping » instead.