FPN for Littering Offence

Martyn_H

Short of locking the bin or standing guard over it, I don't know what else the OP can do apart from removing any address labels.

nuzzy84

Thanks for the responses so far.

The only offence I feel I have committed here is not removing my name and address off the box!! in my defence, this box in particular has been inside my house since COVID so when putting it in the recycling bin, I did not even think to check if there was a name and address label on there

Reading the letter where it says there Is no formal right to appeal, however the Council will accept a representation from myself within 14 calendar days of the issue of the notice. Can any advise on what I could include in this representation that I did not include in my original response that may help? Such as ask for more evidence that I had committed the offence? 

nuzzy84

My property has two entrances, one upstairs and one downstairs, neither of which are at street level. Quite a few properties on my road are the same, and this means that the bins have to remain at street level at all times on the pavement as you can never know what exact times the waste collection will appear. My bins are even numbered with the property number!

There are two separate collections a week, one for normal waste and one for recycling. If the only way to dispose of waste correctly is when it is tipped into the bin lorry, then what is the point of even having Council provided bins? Waste could be left inside the property if this was the case and only be disposed when the bin collectors come?

Alderbank

If this happened to me (and it could, easily) I might try to argue that I have lived here for years and no-one has ever interfered with anyone else's bin so it is reasonable to leave my bins unattended on collection day.

Unfortunately you have volunteered the information that you knowingly leave your waste unattended in a public place where it will be interfered with by unauthorised persons. Indeed you helpfully (for the prosecution!) sent photographic evidence to prove that you do it.

You need to think back to the day when this happened. What is your health like? My daughter occasionally suffers from debilitating migraine often lasting for several hours. When that does happen she is not in a fit state to supervise her bins or to go outside to move them.

You say you have to negotiate steps to get in or out. Have you ever stumbled on those steps, perhaps twisting your ankle a bit making it difficult to safely get in or out of the house for a day or so?

Any other circumstances like those where it would have been temporarily unreasonable for you to exercise your usual duty of care over your bin?

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

nuzzy84 said:

The only offence I feel I have committed here is not removing my name and address off the box!! 

Don't get me wrong OP I think these kind of things end up with people getting unjust fines in these odd situations.

I'm not sure what they mean by representation , I'd recommended looking at the link from earlier

https://www.newham.gov.uk/transport-streets/street-litter

It tells you what they won't accept as representation but not what they will, but further down says if you disagree you committed the offence it's for the courts to decide. 

Personally I'd pay it but not before popping over to the other forum mentioned (pepipoo)

Alderbank said:

Unfortunately I think the OP was (unwittingly) guilty of allowing the escape of waste, which is an offence.

Waste producers (that's all of us) are each responsible for safe keeping of their own waste until we hand it over to an authorised person. In practice that means taking it yourself to a Council household recycling point or giving it to the collection guys on bin day. Leaving it unattended in a public place is not enough.

Contrary to popular belief your responsibility does not end when you park your wheelie bin out on the pavement early on bin day or the night before, it only ends when your waste is tipped into the bin lorry.

The purpose of the legislation is to control fly-tipping.

The relevant wording of the Environmental Protection Act is:
It shall be the duty of the occupier of any domestic property in England or Wales to take all such measures available to him as are reasonable in the circumstances to secure that any transfer by him of household waste produced on the property is only to an authorised person or to a person for authorised transport purposes.

i would have thought that the OP should at least have the opportunity to appeal on the grounds that he had taken all such measures available to him as are reasonable in the circumstances (if that was the case).

OP seems to have gotten a fine for littering rather than fly-tipping (would image the FPN would be around £400 for fly-tipping), not sure what the legal difference is, one council website says littering is anything smaller than a bin bag (seems a bit vague to me).

Not up on the finer details of the Environmental Protection Act, is what you've quoted applicable to just fly-tipping or both fly-tipping and littering?

Alderbank

Fly-tipping is the illegal disposal of household, industrial, commercial or other ‘controlled’ waste.

For a fly-tipping offence, the Council must have evidence that waste produced by the defendant was deposited 'somewhere where it ought not to be'.

Littering is not the same as fly-tipping.
For a littering offence the council must have evidence both of the defendant actually dropping the waste and also of leaving it on the ground. In practice the evidence for littering will always be CCTV, bodycam or witnessing by a Council officer.

Since the OP has never been to the site where the waste was found I think they are safe from a charge of littering.

RefluentBeans

I’m afraid I think you’ve been caught out. I would imagine what you said did happen (in terms of someone looking for a parcel to steal, seeing the parcel in the bin - a not uncommon place for delivery people to dump parcels - and then chucked it out of the car when it was, indeed, garbage). 

It is unfortunate that it had your name on it, and they decided to take action. It could be a push from the council (especially if that area has a lot of litter etc). 

As others have said, you have (in an attempt to be transparent) given this information up, and confessed to the ‘crime’, so to speak. The issue you will have is if you reject the FPN, and take it to court, they can argue that you have already admitted to the crime and so they are entitled to claim the money from you. Your defence is that you didn’t do anything other people don’t do - unfortunately that is the classic speeders defence and doesn’t really have much weight in court. 

If you take this to court, then I would look at building a defence around that you have done everything reasonable within your power to prevent your rubbish from becoming unauthorised waste. Try and have a think about when someone could’ve taken it - was it when the bins are already out for collection or when they were residing at your property? If at your property, I assume they are kept on your property (not on the street), so how far are they kept from the property line? Would someone have to cross your property to open the bin? Is there a gate to your property? Was the bin fully closed when the rubbish was in it? I think building an argument around those facts are more likely to be successful than ‘I’m just doing what everyone else is doing - why are you treating me like this’. 

Assuming this goes to criminal court (not civil court) - then the burden is higher for the council to meet. But the courts are often less flexible than civil courts. It’s up to you whether you want to attempt to defend this and if you do, you are rolling the dice, in my opinion. For an easy life, it may be worth just paying the fine and moving on. 

DE_612183

I'd also ask for the council to provide a time of when your bin / collection was made - if that was very late in the day ( or possibly the day after - which happens to us quite a lot ) then they could be considered to be partially at fault as well.

Teapot55

Incidentally, I don’t think saying “Why would I do that?” is any logical form of defence. (Certainly in crime dramas the baddie always says that because it isn’t actually lying!)

In any case one mustn’t answer a question with another question