\n<\/p>\n
A woman from west London who was fined \u00a3150 for pouring the dregs of her morning coffee down a street drain has had the penalty revoked after a council review.<\/p>\n
Three enforcement officers stopped Burcu Yesilyurt near Richmond station on 10 October and handed her a fixed-penalty notice on her way to work.<\/p>\n
Richmond council initially defended the fine, saying it had been issued \u201cin line with its policies\u201d, but cancelled it on Wednesday afternoon. In an email sent to Yesilyurt at about 3pm, the council said: \u201cI can advise that on review the fixed penalty notice has been cancelled.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yesilyurt, who lives in Kew, said she believed she had been acting responsibly when she emptied a small amount of coffee from her reusable cup before boarding her bus.<\/p>\n
\u201cI noticed my bus was approaching, so I just poured the leftover bit,\u201d Yesilyurt told the BBC. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t much \u2013 just a tiny little bit. As soon as I turned around, three men, enforcement officers, were chasing me, and they stopped me immediately.<\/p>\n
I thought it was about the bus. I had no clue pouring liquid into a drain was illegal. It was quite a shock.\u201d<\/p>\n
The officers told her she was in breach of section 33 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, which makes it an offence to dispose of waste in a way that could pollute land or water. Richmond council had initially said that its officers \u201cacted professionally and objectively\u201d.<\/p>\n
Yesilyurt said she had asked the officers whether there were any signs warning the public about the rule, but was given no answer. \u201cI asked if there were any signs or anything saying you can\u2019t pour coffee away,\u201d she said. \u201cThey didn\u2019t answer me.\u201d She described the encounter as \u201cquite intimidating\u201d and said she felt shaky afterwards. \u201cThey told me I did something criminal,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
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Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n When she asked what she should have done with the remaining coffee, Yesilyurt said she was told to pour it into a nearby bin. \u201cIt feels quite unfair,\u201d she said. \u201cI think the fine is extreme. It\u2019s not proportionate.\u201d<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Richmond council had said earlier that footage from the officers\u2019 body-worn cameras had been reviewed and the authority did \u201cnot agree that officers behaved aggressively\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cFootage confirms the officers acted professionally and were sensitive to the circumstances,\u201d they said. \u201cNobody likes receiving a fine, and we always aim to apply our policies fairly and with understanding. We are committed to protecting Richmond\u2019s waterways and keeping our borough\u2019s streets clean and safe. Enforcement action is only taken when necessary, and residents who feel a fine has been issued incorrectly can request a review.\u201d<\/p>\n The \u00a3150 fine could have been reduced to \u00a3100 if paid within 14 days. Yesilyurt lodged a formal complaint with the council and called for clearer signage near bins and bus stops to warn residents about the rules.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A woman from west London who was fined \u00a3150 for pouring the dregs of her morning coffee down a street drain has had the penalty revoked after a council review. Three enforcement officers stopped Burcu Yesilyurt near Richmond station on 10 October and handed her a fixed-penalty notice on her way to work. Richmond council<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29929,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[3448,17635,3201,1661,10736,17636,1276,4645],"class_list":{"0":"post-29928","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-coffee","9":"tag-drain","10":"tag-fine","11":"tag-london","12":"tag-pouring","13":"tag-revoked","14":"tag-street","15":"tag-womans"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}