DIRTY ROTTERS!
‘Rubbish police’ hit William, 86, with a £200 fly-tipping fine... after he tidies up their mouldering bins at recycling centre
WHEN pensioner William Strawn decided to tidy up the mess around overflowing recycling bins near his home, he thought he was doing the community a service.
His local council had failed to empty the containers, so Mr Strawn, a grandfather- of-four and great-grandfather-of-seven, dutifully tidied up the loose rubbish.
He then put his own old newspapers in one of the bags sitting beside the overflowing bins at the Links recycling centre near his home in Burntisland, Fife.
But days later the 86-year-old was left reeling after being told by council officials that they had rifled through the rubbish to find his address on an old Christmas card and he f aced a £ 200 f i ne f or ‘fly-tipping’.
Retired shipbuilder Mr Strawn said: ‘I took my weekly newspapers down to the tip and my wife had put in some of last year’s Christmas cards, which had my address on them.
‘When I got there it was unbelievable. The bins were absolutely full and people had piled up their waste in the bins and left bags just lying around.
‘You could barely walk around the area because of how much had been left lying about. I don’t like to see rubbish flying about so I tried to clear up a bit.
‘I thought I was doing something good when I was tidying up the plastic bags that were lying around the bin.
‘I didn’t want to leave my own bags lying around so I put my papers into one of the bags already there and left everything together.’
But just a few days later, Mr Strawn opened his front door to discover he was being handed Fife Council’s highest-possible fly-tipping fine of £200.
He said: ‘There’s no appeal route, not at all. I have to pay. I’m lucky to have savings to fall back on but for anyone who has nothing in the bank it’s terrible. I was only trying to do the right thing.
‘I’ve never been in trouble with the law. I’ve never even had a parking ticket.’
Mr Strawn’s daughter Jeanette Malone, 62, of Kirkcaldy, Fife, said: ‘He was trying to do the right thing by recycling, which Fife Council pro- motes all the time, but for his efforts he has been issued with a big fine.’
A £200 fine was also handed out to Alan and Heather Moffat in Burntisland after Mr Moffat left a bag of recycling next to the overflowing bin.
He, too, had tidied up other mess left at the recycling area and chose to bag his recycling rather than dump it on the overflowing pile where the contents would have blown away and created more litter.
Mrs Moffat, 46, said: ‘The next thing, there was a man at the door asking if he had used the recycling centre.
‘He said they had found documents with my name and address on it outside of the bins and he would be fined for fly tipping. He told us eight people were being given fixed penalties.
‘Neither of us has ever had so much as a speeding ticket in our lives and we have always tried to recycle what we can, just like the council asks.
‘This has really got our backs up. There were no warning signs when Alan was down, but since then posters have appeared. I feel this is very heavy-handed as most people don’t realise they shouldn’t leave recycling if the bins are full.’
But last night Fife Council defended the fines and said signs had been put up warning residents not to fly-tip.
Service manager Mark McCall said: ‘Previous years have seen increased fly-tipping at recycling points over Christmas and New Year.
‘This year we undertook a large campaign, including additional signage, prior to the holiday period to advise members of the public not to dump material at recycling points.
‘We take a zero tolerance approach to littering and fly-tipping and issue fixed penalty notices to anyone not disposing of waste in an appropriate container. This includes litter, dog waste, general waste or recyclable material.
‘This has been our policy for a number of years and its implementation has been consistent, which removes any ambiguity when officers are dealing with this problem.’
‘I was only trying to do the right thing’