A month after a family outing to the restaurant, Steven had the unpleasant surprise of discovering a letter from the city of Beringen in his mailbox. “I couldn’t believe my eyes,” he comments in the columns of the Nieuwsblad today. Because inside the missive, there was obviously bad news: “It was a fine with a 20-page letter with more than ten photos of me and family”. His crime? Throwing a “suspicious white package” into a public trash can.
The suspicious white package in question is none other than the diaper of his sick little girl. “She suffers from intestinal problems and had been hospitalized a week before. Because of the medication she had taken at the restaurant, I went to change her diapers in the trunk of my car (…) We then left the diaper in a bag in the trunk. On the way back, we decided to stop and throw the Pampers in a trash can because it stank too much,” says Steven.
What shocks the man is the way the city proceeds. “The report included schedules, several photos, a complete description of my every move. I don’t understand why they didn’t contact us first. We were immediately considered a bunch of criminals! »
Considered a municipal administrative sanction, Steven now risks a fine of up to 350 euros. “The law is the law and everyone must obey it. But dropping something in a public trash can isn’t illegal dumping, is it? he wonders.
Fortunately, the story ends well for the family because after contesting the fine, the charges were dropped. “Here, it was apparently established that the person concerned parked his car and threw a bag in the bin. In principle, it is not permitted to throw household waste into a public bin. The man received a letter about it and then presented his defense with the story of his sick daughter. This defense was accepted. The proposal for an SAC fine was indeed unjustified and was therefore abandoned, ”explains the city to our colleagues.