No-one like to pay a fine

As I have covered previously, no one like to pay a fine.  It just takes money out of your pocket and means there is less for you to use. Pain in the neck isn't it?  We all hate it, but realistically we know that we did wrong (At least I like to think so).  So what about councils?  Remember they can be fined as well.  Where does this money come from?  You.  When a council gets fined it is the money that you paid to the council which is used.

Ages back I asked to Welsh Government about their policies regarding landfill. So I asked them what do they do regarding landfill.  They stated that they do not keeps records but they they do create the laws regarding it.  Fair enough.  So I asked Natural Resource Wales (NRW) how they fine councils for their landfill allowance.  They stated that they are not the ones who impose fines.  Fair enough, I can live with that.

So where could I find the information regarding the amount that councils send to landfill?  Another FoI request to NRW made, and they refered me to here. Now this is very interesting because it shows a number of different things.  The first thing that you need to know is that all councils in wales have an amount of tonnage that they are allowed to send to landfill.  If they go over this then they are fined. It is a way of making sure that we are being more environmentally friendly.

First of all (and the most amazing thing) is that a lot of councils have radically reduced their amount sent to landfill. A quick look shows that Blaenau Gwent, Bridgend, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Denbighshire, Monmouthshire, Neath Port Talbot, Pembrokeshire and Torfaen used the least amount of landfill allowance.  Neath-Port Talbot used only 22.3% of their landfill allowance! Blaenau Gwent used only 15.1% of theirs!  What the heck are they doing there!

Now the interesting thing is that Merthyr, Flintshire and Newport, in 2013/14 went OVER their allotted amount going to landfill.  It shows that the recycle scheme in merthyr must be doing something right as it has dropped the amount going to landfill (by 20%), however the interesting thing is that Flintshire hasn't really dropped its amount going to landfill.  They dropped their allowance by 7% (Newport, dropped their allowance by nearly 40%).

So why is this interesting?  Firstly it shows how much more the councils are doing with regards to amount going to landfill.  It also shows much much the WG is doing.  By forcing council to reduce, reuse and recycle it makes a greener place for all of us.  It also shows that fines work on everyone.  You see the WG can impose huge amount of fines on councils, and at the end of the day, no one wants to pay a fine.

PS the Welsh Government have yet to impose a fine on any council in Wales