New law ends Britain’s Barmy Bin Rules

It may be counter-intuitive to recycling and reducing the amount of waste that goes to landfill, but this week ministers will announce new laws preventing Local Authorities from fining householders for breaking the rules on waste disposal. The laws will put an end to what has become known internationally as ‘Britain’s Barmy Bin Rules’.

The heavy fines issued to householders for making, in some cases, minor or innocent errors with recycling and waste came into force during the last labour government. Fines of up to £1000 have been doled out to Council Tax payers for putting bins out on the wrong day, leaving them out overnight or placing the wrong materials into the wrong bins, despite massive confusion as to what is recyclable or not and this being changeable across different areas and regions. The rules allowing councils to punish households in this way has created a climate of fear, suspicion and resentment amongst the populations of Local Authorities who exercise these powers.

The new laws, which have taken almost two years to come into effect thanks to heated discussions in Whitehall, will be rolled out fully later this year. In the interim period, councils will be asked to lower their fines gradually until the laws come into full effect. After this period, councils will no longer be able to fine householders for innocent mistakes. Instead, they will keep their powers to fine only those who cause ‘harm to local amenity’.

The change in law is not expected to reduce the amount of household rubbish that is recycled but should help to tackle the problem of fly tipping. Fly tipping has become a persistent problem since the introduction of council powers to fine households and has arguably caused significantly more damage to the environment than a newspaper in a plastics recycling bin.

Caroline Spelman, the Environment Secretary, said "Heavy-handed bin fines have for too long been used to punish people for innocent mistakes. We are now consigning them to the scrap heap of history. We want to see people helping us to boost recycling rates by putting out their rubbish correctly but bullying them with fines is not the way to do it. This consultation will mean that only those causing real problems for their community will get punished.”