Will update with link to the newspaper article.

His secretary took it. both of us either side of the recycling container..he had a couple of bags of rubbish in his boot so ideal prop. pishing with rain too

Met MP today there. got pics taken for local press. he uses the recycling point himself and is astounded by this. He's awaiting a response from the council.

Yes the MP (his office) has advised me Press will be in attendance for photos. Nice photo opportunity for him I'm sure and good coverage for me. I've also contacted my constituency MSP and 2 of the more high profile regional MSP's.

I'm no determining appropriate attire for meeting MP at the recycling point. Suit and a suitably disgruntled expression.

Yeah I feel a bit of a dick. Now I'm caught up in 'the system'. Must have mellowed in my maturity, east end Glasgow fella and these boys wouldn't approach anyone near my old area as they'd get told to gtf and probably have their car burnt out. Suppose this might end up some sport and save some other person from being approached by these roasters and paying the fine.

I wish though I'd either just walked past them that sunday, or just told them to gtf. or even gave them wrong name. Was that surprised and they appeared that official I was too stunned ..

I definitely will. We'll see what council replies to the MP. Given that they've told the councillor they will pursue it, I don't know if an MP carries more weight and they'll back down rather than have him against them.

Have photo opportunity with local MP at the recycling centre this Friday. He's also contacted the council so we'll see how this goes when gets in local paper and MP onside.

In reading the reply to the council, they state 'they cleared the hopper of bags' but didn't explicitly say they put mine in it. I got a knock back from council there saying basically wont enter into communication with me, it's up to me to either pay fine or challenge. I replied ; Thanks for your reply. It is my opinion that the wardens acted disproportionately and I'm minded to go to trial to test the number of errors they made and how they exercised zero flexibility to a committed responsible recycler. I have contacted my councillor, MP and the local press to highlight the effective entrapment of citizens by your wardens of a responsible recycler. It was nice of them however to free up the container after fining me.

Had contact from my MP's office who are asking if it's ok for him to raise it in the press and for MP to get a picture taken with me at the recycling point...

Good point. I'll check with councillor also and someone earlier on this mentioned information to request. I've replied to the council co-ordinator who said they are not backing down indicating I think this is outwith the act in that it's not litter and as a single bag of clothes, it falls outwith the act. Upon his reply, I will request stuff under FOI. Need to just ensure I ask for the right stuff however.

good story, as you can see from the councillors response, if get the letter from PF to say they are progressing to court, and I provide them with the details, they will hopefully laugh at the absurdity of it. Even what they have replied to the councillor shows them in a terrible light - that they issued the ticket, then after a few attempts, got container open and put bag in. I'm not a lightweight, gave it a good heave for minute or so which they acknowledge they witnessed and then fined me. If I'd just dumped without a) correctly dumping by bottles and b) flung bag over a hedge onto the railway property, I could understand. I'll see if any of my local papers respond as this is usually newsworthy in highlighting council absurdity, lack of common sense and revenue generation dressed up as civic responsibility.

Conniff, that's the odd thing. I hadn't technically left the car park (I don't think). They oddly never insisted on me taking the bag away with me either.

got this from councilor which was very fair I thought... I have now received a reply from Democratic Services. It would seem that Community Wardens were tasked with taking observations at this site and the one located near the xxxxx shops due to the large number of items being left beside the bins, particularly at the weekends. They state that whilst taking observations, you approached the site on foot carrying two refuse bags, went behind one of the recycling containers and correctly deposited one of the bags. You then approached the clothing bank, pulled down the hopper but did not deposit the bag, but instead placed it on the ground next to other bags located there. You were then approached and informed of the offence which was elected to be dealt with by Fixed Penalty which was issued. Your response was that the container was full and that leaving bags beside the bin was the correct procedure and there were bags already there. The warden then checked the container and after operating the hopper several times freed the bags blocking it allowing access to the container. Democratic Services are of the opinion that the Warden acted fairly and that the Fixed Penalty was correctly issued. I also understand that xxx xxxxx will be responding to you. Let me make several comments regarding this. First of all, if the wardens were acting absolutely fairly they should have checked if the container was full before issuing the Fixed Penalty, not afterwards. Secondly, given that they already admit to observing you deposit one bag correctly and clearly had the intention of depositing the second bag, but were apparently unable to do, a verbal warning should have sufficed not a Fixed Penalty. Thirdly, I am persuaded that these items which were clothing for a charity fall outwith the purview of Section 87 as you correctly surmise. However, and here comes the bad news, the Council appears to be sticking to its guns on this issue. You, therefore, have a choice to make. You can pay the fixed penalty or you can await the Procurator Fiscal’s decision which you could circumvent by responding by letter to the PF on receipt of the Copy Complaint from him which could take anything up to nine months. The key feature of your defence would be that the Community Wardens acted in a manner that was disproportionate to the circumstances when it could have been equally dealt with by verbal warning. Obviously, I cannot speak for how the Procurator Fiscal would react. However, what I can say is that the PF will only go to trial is he has a better that 50% chance of success on such a minor matter. My own view is that your next e.mail to xxxx xxxx should indicate to him that you believe the Wardens acted disproportionately and that you are minded to go to trial on the issue and see how that goes.