Britain doesn't waive rules on rubbish

The UK Daily Mail has recently reported some bizarre examples of the British nanny state in action.

They include instances of children arrested for climbing a tree and cautioned for playing hopscotch in the street.

The authorities have also not gone soft on adults who break the increasingly prescriptive laws. Putting rubbish out early is now an offence, while residents who fail to prevent local fauna from disturbing their rubbish or who put junk mail in a public rubbish bin instead of their domestic one have been threatened with fines.

At least a small measure of commonsense seems to have prevailed in the case of the woman who was charged with putting her rubbish in the wrong bin : she was acquitted after refusing to pay the fine.

I try to do the right thing with my waste, which is put into wheelie bins for collection, but I'll be even more vigilant now in case my local council tries to enforce crackbrained rules like these.