Council fine man £50 over ‘barely open’ bin

Jason Coad, 31, discovered the penalty had been slipped under the front door of his Restalrig Avenue home last week after putting his green household bin out for pick-up for the first time since Christmas.

He claimed he had never received a single warning sticker, or tag, before being given the surprise fine, adding: “The penalty said it was for excess rubbish and because the lid was open. I wouldn’t have even classed it as being open.

“Where the lid meets the bin you’ve got an inside lip on there, a little raised section where the lid overlaps. You couldn’t even actually see rubbish, it was literally just open that fraction.”

City chiefs have said £50 penalties would only be used as a last resort to target repeat offenders. It was revealed yesterday that bin men had stopped collecting thousands of wheelie bins with open lids as part of fortnightly pick-ups after being told to “use their discretion”.

Despite being fined, Mr Coad said his bin had still been emptied.

The council started issuing warning tags from February 4 to those putting out excess rubbish bags or overflowing bins. Fines are not due to be handed out until at least March 18.

Broomhouse Grove resident David King told of rubbish piling up in his neighbourhood this week after collectors left bins in the street. Less than 24 hours after speaking to the News, the 58-year-old reported that crews had done an unscheduled sweep of Broomhouse to remove excess rubbish between 9.30 and 11.30am yesterday.

Readers took to Twitter to complain about the latest bin saga. One tweeter, Grant Cunningham, said: “We all got our bins tagged, but they emptied the bins anyway, the whole saga is a farce.”

City environment convener Councillor Lesley Hinds said: “By overflowing bins, we don’t mean bins where the lid is only slightly ajar. We expect our staff to be applying a sensible, commonsense approach.

“However, in the very small number of cases where refuse collection staff are perhaps misinterpreting the policy, we will make sure we speak to the teams and run through the policy with them again so that they are clear on what is acceptable for collection and what isn’t.”