This morning Nottingham City Council has been forced to apologise after they threatened to prosecute 61 year-old Vivienne Foster for leaving a bag of waste paper next to a full recycling bin.
According to the report, the council traced Ms Foster because a piece of paper in the bag had her name and address on it.
They then wrote to her threatening to take her to court unless she accepted a fixed penalty notice or formal caution.
However this morning the director of Nottingham Council's Environmental Services apologised to Ms Foster saying:
"After reviewing the circumstances involved, the council has decided not to take any further action.
"We do, however, have a commitment to become England's cleanest major city in 2011 so we will continue to catch and prosecute offenders."
This sort of punitive, nanny-state threat is becoming increasingly common across Britain today.
If you don’t do as the local authorities want you to; they throw around fines and reprimands until you fall in line.
We all want a cleaner Britain, but this sort of harassment by Nottingham Council must be condemned.
By Dylan Sharpe