Wednesday 22 October 2008

There's a story behind this.

"They want to fine me £300 for sandwich wrappers. The world's gone crazy. We got a letter from the council's environmental waste department, like everybody else, about six months ago asking us to declare the waste we produce.

"I wrote back to them saying we don't have any. We didn't get anything back and so I though nothing of it, until an officer walked into the office out of the blue for an inspection. There was no warning, he just bounded in and demanded to inspect our waste.

"He accused us of lying and said there are dire consequences for trying to avoid having a proper licence."

Mr Hughes claimed the official was simply looking for reasons to charge him, rather than conceding that he was acting within the law.

He said: "I remembered that my wife had made me cheese sandwiches that day so I produced the cling film and said, 'the only waste here comes from my sarnie wrappers'.

"But he jumped on that saying, 'Well that's waste!' He also asked if we drank tea and when I said 'yes' he told me that tea bags were also classed as waste.

"It was laughable really, I thought he was joking. We take the wrappers and bags back home with us at night.

"But he said we should pay for a licence and save them up for a week and then call them for collection. I showed him the door and he said we'd be getting a £300 fine."

It's not just some jumped up little snot nose having a laugh. There's a reason why the laws are the way they are and it doesn't come from Westminster.

No, all environmental laws now come from Brussels. And thus this law must have come from Brussels. And indeed it has done...that industrial waste (yes, even sandwich wrappers) cannot be dealt with in the same manner as domestic waste is a direct result of the directives and regulations coming out of Europe.

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