jasey

Watching BBC Breakfast TV this moring and some council has fined a guy £50 for throwing junk mail he had received into a public bin. Apparently it was because Junk mail is classed as domestic waste and you're not allowed to dispose of domestic waste in a public bin.

Now I reckon this is indeed the final piece of proof required that this country has gone start raving mad !

Can't find a link - but I'm sure it will be on the news tonight !

MattW

Heard it on the radio this morning as well. Madness!

OllyK

Seems a little crazy to me, be the bins on the high street or your own domestic one, you are paying to have them emptied through your council tax.

It annoys me that we used to get our bin emptied weekly. We have now been given a dinky little recycle box that is about 1/10th the size of the bin and we now have our bin emptied fortnightly. So the bills go up and the amount of rubbish they'll take pretty much halves Yup - got my council tax bill yesterday

Apparition

So what happens with the mother who is away from home for the day with baby and the nappies need changing? Is she expected to cart the mucky ones around with her for the entire day then take them home with her ?
Yve

warrenm2

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/l...re/4792490.stm

Frosty The Snowman

I wonder how the council found out. Possibly someone shopped him I suppose but I can't honestly see why, or are we paying someone to go through the public bins contents once they are emptied?

King RA

Might have something to do with the fact junk mail has your NAME and ADDRESS on....just maybe.

Frosty The Snowman

Well my point was not how they found him, obviously the junk mail has his address on it as said in the article, it was how they found out there was domestic waste in the dust bin in the first place.

I hope we aren't paying people to sift through rubbish in that much detail. You think how much it has cost the council to fine this man £50 and at the end of the day the rubbish goes to the same place.

King RA

People are employed to sift through the rubbish, normally health inspectors looking for takeaways/fishmongers/butchers e.t.c binning their waste.

Brendan Hughes

But that would surely be commercial waste in a public bin, not domestic. I think Yve has a good point above. Even if it was us dumping all of our household waste in a public bin, it would barely overflow, and why would we want to take it out of our house to the public bin anyway? What an odd law.

Frosty The Snowman

You sure about that? And to what extent does this happen, I hope it's just random checks or just checks when there have been specific reports of someone dumping commercial waste in the public bins.

Just can't really see the point in this particular case as it's clearly household rubbish which is covered in your council tax same as the public bin emptying

Brendan Hughes

Beat you

speedking

Surely the offender is the person / company that sent him the rubbish. This guy might have met the postman half way up the drive and the junk mail never entered his house. Then while walking to work he disposed of it. (I know in this case it was in a bag with other stuff, but he could easily deny having anything to do with that.)

e.g. someone leaves a bag of rubbish on your car. Are you then responsible for its disposal? If you put it on the ground are you guilty of an offence? Same with flyers under windscreen wipers. I hate litter, but I'm inclined to throw them on the floor, it's not my rubbish

GC8

I understand that he was seen to leave his house (by Council litter wardens) with his mail; and then place a (small) number of items of unsolicited mail into a public litter bin as he passed. The problem stems from this being a revenue-generating 'offence'; rather like parking violations. Where this is the case you can no longer expect normal rules and safeguards to apply.....

Citizen Simon

Leslie

The conucil says it is trying to stop people filling public bins up with large bags of domestic rubbish.

In this case of putting two pieces of junkmail in the bin it is beyond belief that they should fine him for doing that. Talk about council little Hitlers!

I would go to court, tell them exactly what I think and refuse to pay the fine at all costs.

Les

Tiggs

they found him because that bin was constantly used by residents for dumping rubbish.....people complained so the council looked into it- and found his letters.

GC8

Of course, he cant actually go to court and defend himself. This isnt a criminal matter; it has been 'de-criminalised' and as such they feel that your right to trial before fine (as provided for in the 1689 'Bill of Rights') neednt be observed.

On a seperate note; if Tiggs is correct then it begs the question; why did local council tax-payers need to resort to using public litter bins to dispose of their domestic refuse?

Citizen Simon

Frosty The Snowman

Ahh...that's not too bad then, you can understand them sorting through the rubbish in that case.

As comrade Simon said, wonder why the residents don't use the normal household bins.

SVVG

iTrader: (1)

I had no idea that you couldn't put certain things into public litter bins!!

Obviously common snse re chemicals and waste oils etc - but that seems rediculous! Everyone (I think????) gets given a wheely bin from their counsel so no one's going to bother trecking along to thier nearest public bin to fill them up - and hence become a nuisance ot eh public - are they?

Craziness!!!!

So what can you , and what can;t you throw in public bins - or is it council/area specific???

Tiggs

"Everyone (I think????) gets given a wheely bin from their counsel"

no- some councils think they look ugly so wont allow bins to be put in them- if you use one they will not touch it.

SwissTony

iTrader: (19)

the best one is when the council send you leaflets on how they are cutting down on junk mail and paper wastage and how we should all recycle paper more etc etc and the fecking leaflets run to a dozen or so.

davegtt

Correct, South Kesteven DC dont provide wheelie bins. tight ar$e gits.

warrenm2

The council have backed down after everyone was outraged....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/l...re/4792490.stm