Council rubbish bin collection fines to be scrapped Rubbish collection Residents can

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Council rubbish bin collection fines to be scrapped




Residents can receive a fixed-penalty notice if they repeatedly break the rules on rubbish collections

Fines for residents who break the rules on rubbish collections in England are to be scrapped.
Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman is expected to announce next month that the charges will be outlawed in all but the most serious cases of fly-tipping.
Meanwhile, ministers have warned councils against "charging by the back-door" for refuse services.
This includes forcing residents to buy "official" rubbish sacks from the council rather than other suppliers.


'Small minority'

At the moment, people can be fined with a fixed-penalty notice if they repeatedly break the rules covering rubbish collections, such as recycling incorrectly or leaving waste out on the wrong day.
The government will remove most of those powers from English town halls after promising last year to scrap them.
In another move, Environment Minister Lord Henley and Local Government Minister Bob Neill have written to councils in England after concerns a "small minority" were going beyond their legal powers to charge for refuse collections.
Their letter reminds local authorities they can charge for collecting bulky or garden waste but not regular rubbish.
Councils are also not allowed to impose a call-out fee if rubbish collectors arrive at a property but are unable for some reason to pick up the waste at that time.


Charging by 'backdoor'

The ministers said councils must not force residents to buy "official" rubbish sacks from the town hall in places where people had to purchase their own bags, warning that authorities should not create a monopoly.
They wrote: "In short, councils cannot introduce 'backdoor' bin charging for mainstream waste collections or waste disposal.
"Such stealth taxes are not legal and are contrary to the policy direction of the new government."
Ministers are currently passing legislation to get rid of the previous Labour government's policy of offering councils the chance to take part in pilot "pay-as-you-throw" schemes which charge households which create the most rubbish.
Lord Henley and Mr Neill said the government believed such initiatives would encourage fly-tipping and burning in gardens, and impose added costs to families which were already struggling financially.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13027352

[Zoots]

Out of my council tax of over a grand, £100 is for the police, £35 is for the fire service and the rest is for the council. I have always believed my refuse collection is included in this, and while this amount goes up every year, the actual provision of this service has gradually decreased.
Signs went up everywhere threatening fines for putting your bins out the night before, stuff in the wrong types of bins (we have four types one of which needs these bio-degradable bags which we're supposed to buy from designated shops) and too much/over pouring waste in the bins. They have to all be in one designated area but the bin men leave them all over the street. They come once every fortnight for the grey general waste bins. This has two problems: 1) we can fill one of those in a week easily and 2) cheeky scrotes round here use other people's bins as well as theirs, so if anyone leaves their bin outside the garden or doesn't get it in in time, it's already full when they come to it. Then we get told we're going to be fined if there's stuff in that bin that shouldn't be - so potentially people being fined for other people's rubbish.

I took the numbers off all the bins and left the fucking lot of them to it. We do our own recycling here now, get the kids involved and whatnot, and go to our super-duper multi-million pound high-tech recycling centre once or twice a week. Now if I could only get the council to give me a reduction on my council tax for doing a better job than them I'd be happy.

offering councils the chance to take part in pilot "pay-as-you-throw" schemes which charge households which create the most rubbish.

As far as I knew it, the "pay as you throw" scheme is where some countries charge per bag of refuse collected - or per bag of recycling. This is suggesting we would have been charged a further levy for extra bags I think?