Council fines couple £400 for throwing away single envelope in public bin

35 comments

1. Shame on Stoke-on-Trent ngl. I hope they get voted out at the next election, whoever is in power

2. Heinous crimes need dealing with, I hope the council sends them to gitmo…

   ​

   Joking aside, what the fuck!

3. Stoke Council can do that but can’t deal with randm druggy fights taking place at the buzzing active time of 8 AM on a Thursday morning, never mind the fact that the roads are like driving in a pothole showroom in some areas.

4. >”I have received a letter from the council with a fine of £200 and my husband has received one too because apparently we’re both to blame. It is for an empty envelope inside a bin

   I think you know where the envelope for this letter needs to go…

5. >littering offence because household waste cannot be placed in a public bin

   Surely that’s going to be an easy argument. It wasn’t waste until she left her home and opened the letter, so it’s not household waste.

   Otherwise, people could be fined for bringing a bottle of water from home and putting it in a public bin when they’re done with it.

6. This stuff is frustrating but Sadly this will be the future moving forward in an attempt to recoup money for many councils who are strapped for cash.

   Road tolls, stricter rules on everything and all in an attempt to generate money.

   Not that I disagree with it, but my gut is telling me that labour will strongly encourage this too when they’re in power, especially since they’ve vetoed any real way to make money available by other means.

   The thing is, Blair did this with speed vans etc….and that did prove so genuinely unpopular that they halted this work.

   If it really has to be done then it’s got to be done in a fair manner and not a ‘must make cash/abuse rules and processes to make cash’ directive.

7. Exactly the kind of jobsworth pricks that need to be sacked. Are they paying someone to go through the litter to catch people?

   And talking about prison if they refuse to pay the fine? The council officer doing this needs to go to prison for abuse of public office.

   I hope they put as much effort into punishing fly tippers.

8. What is it about local councils that attracts petty authoritarian numpties? I swear, they’d have us all pissing in jars twice a week if they thought they’d get away with it

9. A public waste offence has definitely been committed here – the council wasting public funds and everyone’s time.

10. Shame the council doesn’t take action regarding the huge pile of rubbish left behind by a few caravans in Stoke last week

11. We need to hire a common sense committee in this country because it’s just getting absurd what we hear about these days.

12. Wow. I wonder what sort of fine I would have gotten if I was caught putting a dead seagull in a public bin (which I had to do last week).

13. Good to see councils cracking down on serious crimes! /s

14. Meanwhile, no one gets fined for leaving trash on the ground.

15. Outside my local Morrisons, I recently found bags of dumped, opened mail – bank statements, broadband statements… all sorts of things. Private information about people from Sunderland, Hartlepool, Leeds to name but a few places. I doubt these folk were responsible for/expected their mail to end up dumped in the street but I guess Stoke-On-Trent Council would merrily fine them all too had it happened there.

16. the people that enforce these fines hang out in city centres looking for even the slightest of lawbreakers. All you gotta do is ignore them and not give names. They’re council, not police, and don’t have authority to stop you or get your name.

17. Is it a bit like when my council throw recycling bags onto my property instead of putting them through my letterbox?

18. Stoke on Trent City Council still being absolute cretins instead of doing their job to a minimally adequate standard I see.

19. How can two people be guilty of the same offence? Did they simultaneously place the envelope in the bin together?

20. Our council tax must only be used to subsidise the waste disposal costs of multi million pounds business. No bin use for the small man.

21. She’s can’t do that but the water companys can pump shit out of our taps and it’s “A mistake”.

22. So what if someone pint out the some letters with the addresses of local council members put them in a bag with some rubbish maybe even with some asbestos with a warning then dump it in a litter bin of an agent  council?

23. Everyone should invest in a shredder. Unless the council are going to piece together the shreds as well…

24. Councils are bankrupt.

    Fine industry, here we go!!!

25. That is some stupid shit, power has gone to their heads, after reading this one in the comments too https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/1d3hlsq/council_fines_couple_400_for_throwing_away_single/l67q2mq/

    It seems that councils need a way to make more money due to the tory cut backs and there is nothing stopping them from pulling these cuntish tactics.

    Where is the labelling on the side of the bins to indicate what rubbish can to placed within the receptacle or signs as you enter the councils borough that indicates what differs from the borough they just left, would that claim ignorance is not an excuse? we now need to research each boroughs rules as we enter each before using a bin?

    These need to be fought all the way to court, I’d hope a judge or jury would side on common sense here and tell the council whats what.

    Infuckingsanity.

26. Just to play devil’s advocate, does anyone actually know if this couple put several bin bags of waste in a public bin whilst having a clear out to save a tip run and one of the bags had an envelope in it which was photographed as proof of their “fly tipping”? Perhaps even on a regular basis?

    Only because I can not believe anyone could be so petty as to send a fine for a single envelope, but I guess stranger things have happened.

27. > [C]ouncil investigators argue this violates sections 87 and 88 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, classifying it as a littering offence because household waste cannot be placed in a public bin.

    Does anyone know where this distinction comes from? I’m not seeing it in the plain text on the [EPA 1990](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/43/section/87).

    However, looking at the letter, there may be a potentially important distinction in it. It’s hard to make out because of the resolution, but it appears to say “was found **by** a public bin” (my emphasis). That would seem to be more in line with the text of the act, though it would be unclear whether it was dropped next to the bin, or if it was placed in the bin and somehow came out later.

    > [M]y husband has received one too because apparently we’re both to blame.

    I can’t imagine there’s any reason to pay both notices – the offence is if “any person throws down, drops or otherwise deposits any litter in any place to which this section applies and leaves it and leaves it”. How can two people have done this with a single letter? The FPN itself may be technically legitimate, as the requirement for issuing one is “finds a person who he has reason to believe has on that occasion committed an offence under section 87”. However, I can’t see why the husband should pay as there seem to be no prospect of conviction, as the wife has admitting leaving the letter (though not necessarily any offence).

28. Print out loads of envelopes with council workers names and addresses on. Put them in loads of bins. Sit back and watch the bun fight 🤣

29. So do these idiots follow the refuse collectors doing their rounds and fine them for fly tipping when rubbish falls out of bins and don’t pick it up.

30. I wonder if this is the same council that fined a guy doing a similar thing years ago? From what I remember, he had left his house and the postie handed him his mail in the street. One letter was junk mail so he threw it in the public bin further down the road then got a fine later for it.

31. I like how she picks on a homeless guy living in a freezer outside a cornershop. He gets away with it! Such an easy life he must have eh.

    The fine is still bollocks though.

32. Fucking hell these lot would have a field day if they went round page hall in sheff,could pay off countries debt in a day.

33. >”There was a man living in an empty freezer outside the One Stop shop and he left rubbish everywhere yet nothing was done about that. It’s shocking and unbelievable, the world’s gone mad.”

    I’m guessing the council decided it wasn’t worth issuing a fine to a man living in a freezer? Anyway, this has to be one of the craziest claims I’ve read recently.

34. I’m visiting Japan at the moment and there are very few public litter bins. It’s accepted that you take your litter home and dispose of it there. The result – their streets are clean. I saw someone accidentally drop some paper and 2 people immediately pointed it out to him. He picked it up and thanked them.

    I wish the UK could be like that

35. Write letters to local councillors and throw them in litter bins