A nurse has been fined £1,000 after leaving an single envelope next to communal bins at her home which were overflowing.
Loretta Alvarez, 26, was accused of ‘fly-tipping’ by her local council, who saw her address on the cardboard packaging.
The single mother of a two-year-old says she does not have enough money to pay the fine, and is willing to go to court to clear her name.
Saying she would ‘never intentionally’ leave rubbish out in the open, she said she thought she was doing the right thing by leaving it next to other cardboard which had been left to the side of the full bins in Feltham, west London.
She told the BBC: ‘I don’t have that money to give, I can’t afford getting into debt to pay it, and I don’t want to get a mark on my record.
‘I’m a mental health nurse, I went to university for three years.
‘They’re fining me more than someone gets for speeding.’
Loretta thinks Hounslow Council must have assumed she was responsible for leaving all the cardboard left beside the bins, but denies this was the case.
The bins are shared with about 25 other properties, and this is not the first time they have been over capacity, she said.
Loretta was told she had until November 5 to make the payment in full, or risk legal proceedings and a potential criminal charge.
The fine is understood to be on hold, but has not been cancelled.
Hounslow Council’s Pritam Grewal, cabinet member for community safety, said the council ‘remains committed to taking a zero-tolerance approach to littering and protecting the local environment’.
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He said: ‘We have done the right thing in issuing the fine, because littering includes leaving waste anywhere in public apart from in a bin, regardless of whether bins are full.
‘While we accept that no one likes receiving a fine, residents expect us to tackle the offence and the offenders.’
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