Boss faces fine for wrapping his lunch without a licence

A company boss faces a £300 fine – for failing to declare his sandwich wrapper as “industrial waste”. Frank Hughes, 62, was threatened with the penalty by a council official during a spot inspection at his office and told he may be punished over his used tea bags. The businessman, who runs a small scaffolding firm, works from an industrial unit with his wife Liz, 61, while their team of labourers visit sites across Liverpool.

But the official insisted they had flouted new nationwide laws which force companies to declare industrial waste despite the couple explaining they only have cling film from their home-made sandwiches and soggy tea bags.

Mr Hughes said: “They want to fine me £300 for sandwich wrappers. The world’s gone crazy. We got a letter from the council’s environmental waste department, like everybody else, about six months ago asking us to declare the waste we produce. I wrote back to them saying we don’t have any. We didn’t get anything back and so I though nothing of it, until an officer walked into the office out of the blue for an inspection. There was no warning, he just bounded in and demanded to inspect our waste.

“He accused us of lying and said there are dire consequences for trying to avoid having a proper licence.” He added: “It got me a bit riled. Then I remembered that my wife had made me cheese sandwiches that day so I produced the cling film and said, ‘the only waste here comes from my sarnie wrappers’.

“But he jumped on that saying, ‘Well that’s waste!’ He also asked if we drank tea and when I said ‘yes’ he told me that tea bags were also classed as waste. It was laughable really, I thought he was joking. We take the wrappers and bags back home with us at night.

“But he said we should pay for a licence and save them up for a week and then call them for collection. I showed him the door and he said we’d be getting a £300 fine.”