[Michael Reeves said the decision to prosecute him was "crazy"] Posted on 10/17/2006 2:13:04 PM PDT by kiriath_jearim
Magistrates have fined a man £200 after finding him guilty of putting paper in a recycling sack for bottles and cans only - breaking council rules.
Michael Reeves, 28, a journalist from Swansea, had denied putting an item of junk mail in the bag.
[Michael Reeves said the decision to prosecute him was "crazy"]
The court was told the letter, which was addressed to him, "contaminated" the other items put out for recycling.
After the hearing Mr Reeves said he had since stopped recycling and feared his case would discourage others.
Magistrates in the city were told under the Environmental Protection Act, councils could impose strict rules on their refuse collection services.
Mr Reeves was served with a warning notice in April this year when he put his bins out a day early because he was going on holiday.
Then in June a green recycling bag was found outside his ground floor flat in the Mount Pleasant area of the city containing both paper and bottles and cans.
Swansea Council enforcement officer Martin Lemon said: "There is a recycling scheme available in which paper can put into a green recycling sack and glass bottles and tins can be put into a separate sack."
He said if the items were mixed in the same bag then it would be sent to landfill instead as the council's recycling collection team refused to pick it up.
"The fly-tipping team have responsibility for collecting waste that has been incorrectly disposed of," he said.
"The teams are trained to search through any offending waste that they have found to look for evidence of its origins.
"My colleague informed me that he had opened a green recycling sack and that he found a piece of junk mail with Mr Reeve's name and address."
The sports writer with the city's Evening Post newspaper denied putting the letter in the bag.
The court heard there were no eye witnesses or camera footage of him doing so.
His solicitor Nicola Smith said there was "an array" of possibilities of how it came to be in the sack.
But magistrates found him guilty and fined him £100 and ordered him to pay £100 costs.
Speaking after Tuesday's hearing he described the case as "crazy".
"I don't believe they proved beyond reasonable doubt that I put the paper in the bag - I did not," he said.
He added: "I have not recycled since I received the summons.
"People are not going to recycle if they end up in court and it costs them £200."
Here in Saint Paul, MN, the recycling rules are quite strict. Aluminum cans must be rinsed out and flattened. Rinsed out. Newspapers can't be just put in a bag...they HAVE to be tied in a bundle. Cardboard must also be tied in bundles.
I still recycle the newspapers and cardboard, but the cans go in the trash.
Why?
I don't recycle because the local recyler used part of the proceeds to support John Kerry.
When recycling first became all the rage, I was a good little citizen and separated my trash into all of the categories.
There was no recycling pick-up at the time. Each person had to haul their trash to the library parking lot, and put their trash in the properly marked dumpsters.
One day, I arrived with my car full of junk to recycle. It just happened that the truck was there to empty the dumpsters, so I waited for the truck to get through,
Imagine my surprise when I saw that all the bins were being emptied into the same garbage truck and all mixed and mashed together in the one garbage truck.
That ended my recycling days forever.
If there's no market for the stuff being "recycled", then there's nothing to it but to haul it all to the landfill.
LOL...ours are SUPPOSED to be rinsed out, too....but I kinda get a gleeful feeling throwing cans in recycle that haven't been rinsed.....It's my little rebellion....LOL.
A country that hasn't the brains to expel the people who want to kill them and gets its knickers all in a twist over bits of paper is a country that has only a short while to live.
The head-choppers will take over and then there will be a lot of bits of paper all over the streets.
And somewhere George Orwell is laughing his ass off saying "I told you so"
Here, here!
What's this "recycling" you speak of? Riding a bike more than once? ;-p
Mad Indeed!!! I saw that very thing last week. In Kansas City, we been doing curbside recycling for a while now. Once the bag trash is picked up in our neighborhood, the same exact truck (including the same driver and crew) runs the neighborhood again and dumps the recycle bins... in the same truck a few minutes later! At first I thought they'd dumped first, but after watching them for a few weeks, I see they don't. Bloody silliness.
My tax dollars at work...
Studies have shown that, generally, less energy is used if you just throw the paper away and they make new paper.
Please, help save our enviroment, stop recycling.
If recycling is valuable then people should be paid to do it.
Same with me, tho I was not "surpised"....just reinforced my belief that all this crap about recycling is just that...crap.
FMCDH(BITS)
Just because!
A "journalist" huh? Good, in fact he should have been fined more, especially if he was a BBC or Reuter's Terrori...er journalist.
Here's what I think of recycling. Bet you didn't know there were so many enviro kook Freepers
I burn everything that can burn, and heat my house with it. The beauty of an outdoor wood stove is that you can toss anything that burns in it, and hot water is all you get running into the house.
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