A woman and her husband were fined £150 after leaving a cardboard box outside her house to be picked up for recycling by binmen.
Kristal Martin-Lockyer claimed that, despite placing the cardboard box beside her recycling bin, only the contents of the bin were emptied when the recycling was collected and the box was left behind. Kristal and her husband Ashley were shocked to receive a penalty from their local council shortly afterwards.
The penalty notice told nurse Kristal, 31, and courier driver Ashley, 34, that they owed £150 for littering - and warned that if they didn’t pay the fine within 14 days it could rise to £1,000. Kristal said she was told by the council that the fine was ‘unappealable’, WalesOnline reports .
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Kristal, who is pregnant with her second child, explained that the box containing some other items for recycling had been left propped up against the side of the bin “with the obvious intention to recycle”. When it wasn’t taken by the binmen, a member of the council soon came knocking telling her and Ashley that they needed to move the box.
“He gave us the impression he was just issuing a warning and even offered to lend a van to help us dispose of the box,” Kristal recalled. But the fine arrived in the post the next day.
“I haven’t been fined for anything before, not even a parking ticket - it was completely out of the blue,” Kristal said. And the fine has caused the couple “a lot of stress” when it comes to their finances.
Kristal has had to cut down her hours at work due to her pregnancy, and coupled with the rising cost of living she said that the fine “couldn’t have happened at a worse time”. The couple, who live in Enfield in North London, have asked Enfield Council if they can pay the fine in instalments.
The wording on the fine reads: "You deposited and left litter by way of a large cardboard box with further smaller cardboard packages inside and a plastic item, on the public highway at [redacted] without consent of the Waste Authority contrary to Section 87 Environmental Protection Act 1990."
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