The Govern
ment has confirmed it is to scrap hefty fines that punish people for putting rubbish or recycling in the wrong bin.
A consultation has been launched to stop councils imposing ‘bin fines’ of up to £1,000 on households that overfill their bins or accidentally leave their rubbish out on the wrong day.
Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman said: “Honest, hard-working people have been punished for innocent mistakes with heavy-handed bin fines for far too long. We are now consigning these bin-fines to the scrap heap of history.
“We want to see people helping us to boost recycling rates by putting out their rubbish correctly, but bullying them with fines is not the way to do it. This consultation will mean that only those causing real problems for their community will get punished.”
The announcement was welcomed by many of the popular press, and the Government no doubt feels it may win them a few votes. At Pelican we have advocated better communications as a way of reducing collection issues as you can see from earlier blogs. So we feel this is probably a move in the right direction as it should reduce the number of negative ‘Bin Police’ headlines.
However it is important that councils still have the power to deal with persistent offenders. Under the current system, councils have the power to issue fixed penalty notices of up to £110, or push for criminal convictions and a fine of up to £1,000.
Responses to the Consultation will make interesting reading
