Father fined for overfilling bin

[Philosophia]

Father fined for overfilling bin

A father-of-four has been left with a criminal record for overfilling his wheelie bin by four inches.

Gareth Corkhill, 26, of Whitehaven, Cumbria, received a £110 fixed penalty notice after Copeland Council staff photographed his raised bin lid.

When he refused to pay he was taken to court where magistrates added a further £115 to the fixed penalty.

From here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/cumbria/7360147.stm).

:wtf: He got fined for that?

[Thunder]

It is starting to sound like America there.

[Sacredsin]

Yes Indeed.

[Lunacie]

The folks at the end of our street would be fined every week if we had that law here. My bin is rarely more than half full (with four people, one large dog and a cat living here). They may have five people at their house, and keep a grandbaby during the day while his mom works, but that shouldn't make them have three times as much trash as we do.

Some people buy so much stuff and throw so much stuff away that it makes me sick. I was flipping through the channels the other evening and saw a woman on Oprah who went shopping for new food every week and simply threw out the old food, whether it was still good or not. Makes me wonder what else she threw away that could be used, reused, or recycled?

Consumerism is becoming an epidemic disease. I would applaud the city in the article for trying to stop the madness. But it doesn't sound like they took into account that the trash collection went from being weekly to being every other week - so of course people have twice as much trash in their bins now, eh?

[sarabethv]

But still, fining him for having it just a bit above it ridiculous and according to the article that is going to cut down on waste? I don't see how - but maybe its late.

[Against The Tide]

Four inches geez... Its not the mans fault, those bin men never show up and then councils have them come EVERY other week or something... I live in so called 'enviromental city' Leicester but we don't recycle plastic in our green bins scheme (in my village at least) so that counts towards inchage that fills the bin :(

[halfwaynowhere]

simple solution if your bins are overfull- toss your garbage into the neighbor's bin. better yet, if you have a problem with your neighbor, toss your trash into their bin to purposely make it overfull. Sounds like a good idea to me. yep.


I'm trying to be funny, but its late, so this probably just sounds stupid. Forgive me.

[RubyRose]

How odd. We have a weekly collection and its always full if not occasionally just overflowing.

[TygerTyger]

I wonder if the council officials would have been keen to deal so harshly if their posts where, like in some parts of the world, open to election too? How much support would the head of the cleansing department get with this case on his c.v?

I think that the magistrates are also at fault, as part of the legal system they are responsible, or certainly should be, for ensuring that the application of law is respected, this case simply brings the law into disrepute as anyone with an ounce of commonsense can see.

It does not surprise me that this man was fined more than most people who carry out violent attacks on the streets of the country!

[Rudas Starblaze]

simple solution if your bins are overfull- toss your garbage into the neighbor's bin. better yet, if you have a problem with your neighbor, toss your trash into their bin to purposely make it overfull. Sounds like a good idea to me. yep.


I'm trying to be funny, but its late, so this probably just sounds stupid. Forgive me.

funny!? its brilliant!! hell! i would do that anyway if i were in an area like that!

but... we dont have bins here. hell, we dont have recycling here either. we just set out bags of trash and be done with it but there are certain things the trash guys wont take. the trash guy takes whatever i throw out no questions asked. we've "talked"....

[Fluoxetine]

The fine will have come about from the weight issue the carts have to pick up on the back. If it is too heavy they leave it. So a full bin will cause problems.

Now placing it in your neighbors bin is nothing new. We do it here all the time as long as we know why and the reason for it. They have taken from weekly collection to fortnightly. It is now a burden as they only take the bins and not any garbage outside of the bins. So we are left with some rubbish left on the streets to be placed back in the bins for the next collection.

And yes we do have 4 bins for recycle. Main waste, garden, paper and plastic/cans in a tub. It causes problems now when they come to collect as you may end up with all 4 outside on one day.

[halfwaynowhere]

you brits are weird.
We have trucks with mechanical lifty arms that come by and pick up the bins. No need for much manual labor, unless there are non-standard bins, or extra bags sitting out, which they still pick up.

[Willow Rosette]

I used to drive a residential garbage truck. We never dumped cans by hand but with the truck if a can is over filled even that much when it grabs it the can acta like a volcano and anything that isnt IN the can goes flying out and then the driver has to go pick up the garbage off the ground. After awhile it gets really old and disgusting. But I also got to know my customers and if they did it regularly I would slap a tag on it and leave it till they fixed it. But if it was someone that didnt make a habbit out of it I would do it.

But if your garbage people there dump them by hand then I cant see that little bit making a differene.