Resident fined £400 for dumping bags of rubbish in the cardboard recycling bank

The bags were dumped at their local community recycling site in Back Lane Carpark, Newtown town centre.

Whilst conducting their routine patrols in the area, the council’s waste awareness and enforcement officers came across the pile of five black bags full of household rubbish thrown into the cardboard recycling bank. An examination of the waste found a takeaway delivery receipt, which linked the waste to a local residence.

A suspect was identified and then interviewed under caution. After admitting to fly-tipping their rubbish at the community recycling site, they were offered the option to settle the matter out of court via payment of a £400 Fixed Penalty Notice for fly tipping under Section 33 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

“We are horrified at the types of rubbish we are finding in some of our community recycling sites,” said councillor Jackie Charlton, cabinet member for a greener Powys. “Some of our residents have no respect, lazily choosing to fly-tip their waste in these community recycling facilities.

“This anti-social behaviour not only means that our poor staff have to sort through the banks by hand, but also often results in all the correctly recycled material within the bank rejected by the recycling processors due to contamination. The selfish actions of a few irresponsible people result in a huge waste of everyone else’s time and efforts.

“The council has a zero-tolerance approach to fly-tipping and all incidents are thoroughly investigated by our enforcement team and fines issued to those responsible.”

Members of the public are urged to report any incidences of contamination that they find or witness at the community recycling sites. This, along with the CCTV we have in place at many of the sites and the inspections of our waste awareness and enforcement officers, will help catch and reprimand offenders appropriately. Individuals found guilty of deliberately dumping rubbish in the recycling banks can expect to receive a Fixed Penalty Notice.