Far North woman faces hefty price for good deed

Bev Grant says she has no intention of paying a council fine for illegally dumping rubbish.

Doubtless Bay woman Bev Grant thought she was doing a good deed when she stopped at Taipa on her way to work in Kaitaia to put a plastic bag of rubbish she had collected off the side of the road into a council bin.

The Far North District Council saw it differently. Compliance monitoring officer Joe Tua wrote to Grant, informing her that a council contractor had seen the female driver of her vehicle illegally depositing household rubbish in a council bin. He forwarded photographs of the car and two plastic bags of rubbish - she said she had only deposited one - and a $250 ticket.

Grant said there was some of her rubbish - a few bits of paper - in the bag, but most of it had come from the roadside. She collected rubbish on a daily basis when she walked her dogs.

She had no intention of paying the fine. And now it doesn't look like she'll have to.

Council compliance manager Darren Edwards commended Grant, and the many other community-minded residents like her who regularly collected litter in their communities.

The last thing the council wanted to do was to discourage them, but Grant's fine highlighted the difficulties council staff faced in policing littering and dumping bylaws.

"We issue infringements based on the information we have," Edwards said.

"A contractor had witnessed her using public rubbish bins to dispose of household rubbish, and an infringement was duly issued. The letter invited her to contact Mr Tua to discuss the matter.

"I am confident that had she done so, and explained where the rubbish had actually come from, the infringement would have been waived."

If Grant confirmed what the Northland Age had told him "we will happily waive the infringement".

Tua's letter told Grant that bins were provided for rubbish from "transitory visitors", vehicles and pedestrians. Putting in household rubbish was deemed to be illegal dumping, punishable by a fine of $250, and up to $5000.