Speaking of rubbish, can you believe this?  Pasted from my newspage.


"A man has spoken out after being fined £225 for overfilling his wheelie bin by four inches.

Gareth Corkhill, 26, of Whitehaven, Cumbria, was stunned to receive a fixed penalty notice from Copeland Borough Council.

He was charged with overfilling his bin, which had its lid raised but did not pay the fine of £110 and was taken to court, where he was ordered to pay an extra £100 in prosecution costs and a £15 court surcharge.

"My bin lid was only open four inches," he said.

I was in shock when I found about the fine. I couldn't believe they would do that.

"I have my rubbish collected every fortnight. There are five people in my family, three children, me and my wife. Plus I have my daughter over the weekends.

"We recycle everything we can, including plastics, cardboard, tins, glass and paper. We have got a black box that is always full.

"It's only an £80 fine for flytipping. I would have been better off doing that."

In a statement the council said: "Copeland Borough Council will continue to crack down on the problem of overflowing bins, which cause problems for local residents and in the battle to reduce waste.

"It is important that we all reduce the amount of waste we send to landfill.

"We can do this by recycling more of what is in our bins, and we would advise anyone who has a problem with too much waste to look at what can be recycled."