A man could become the first person in Basildon to be prosecuted for failing to recycle properly.You see, in Basildon, you don’t get a choice about recycling. You have to do it.
Basildon Council is drawing up a magistrates’ court case against the Noak Bridge resident, who has yet to be named.
He failed to pay a £75 fixed penalty notice, issued last month, for failing to recycle properly after receiving two warnings.
If they spot no recycling bags, they go rifling through your black sacks to see if you are throwing away stuff that could be recycled:
Compulsory recycling went live across the district from September last year, with the enforcement review running from November 2009 until the end of June.Welcome to the People’s Republic of Basildon, comrade.
Five full-time environmental enforcement officers probe people’s pink and black rubbish sacks, looking for correspondence to identify the offender.
Meanwhile, in neighbouring Southend, they may have trouble instituting such draconian schemes.
At least, until they’ve cleaned their own house:
Southend Council has been slammed for not recycling its own food waste despite urging residents to do so.Unless Pickles and Spelman get a grip on things, expect this to escalate, and flytipping to spiral out of control.
Lib Dem councillor Carole Roast said she was outraged to discover that food from the Civic Centre is not recycled and the council does not require its private catering firm, Yes Dining, to do so either.
6 comments:
They'd have trouble dealing with me, then.
And "...looking for correspondence to identify the offender" is unlikely to be productive: anything with my name and address on it, including envelopes, gets shredded prior to disposal.
My local Council prosecuted a woman for 'polluting' her green bin with non-recyclable material over two years ago; she got off on the grounds that she could not be responsible what got put in it either in her own front garden or when left for hours on the pavement.
Likewise, I shed everything, as advised by HMG.
Yep, total shred policy in my gaff as well.
"and flytipping to spiral out of control." - I thought it already had?
Shredding will prevent the average Nigerian fraudster from buying a Spanish villa in your name, but will not prevent the Council filth from I.D'ing you. Burn after reading.
"They'd have trouble dealing with me, then."
Heh!
"...she got off on the grounds that she could not be responsible what got put in it either in her own front garden or when left for hours on the pavement."
More people should force the issue with the courts, but you can understand why they don't, can't you?
""and flytipping to spiral out of control." - I thought it already had?"
Oh, I don't think we've seen the worst quite yet.
"Burn after reading."
I think this is the perfect season for that! Not going to be so easy in winter though.
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