Woman fined for throwing work papers away with home rubbish

A businesswoman is counting the cost of taking work home with her after paperwork she put by her bin led to her being hauled before the courts. Martene Lant has been ordered to pay more than £500 for putting sheets of paper, which should have gone into her office bin, in her rubbish at home. The fitness trainer was prosecuted under laws designed to tackle fly-tippers, rogue traders and polluters.

The company director, who regularly works 70-hour weeks, had decided to finish off some administrative paperwork in the comfort of her home rather than working late alone in her office. When she finished she put her pile of papers into a bin liner and left it at the back of her Heaton home to be taken away. But the Fitness Training Consortium boss fell foul of officials from Newcastle City Council who opened up the bin liner and found some of the letter-headed paperwork.



Council officials tracked her down and launched legal action against her which resulted in her pleading guilty to three charges under the Environmental Protection Act. The 40-year-old said: “I think it’s completely ridiculous that I have been taken to court for putting some paperwork in among my household rubbish. There must be tens of thousands of people who take a little bit of paperwork home with them.”

Miss Lant said the council’s actions were another sign of small businesses being hit with burdensome red tape. Miss Lant was given an absolute discharge by magistrates in Newcastle after admitting one charge of depositing waste. As director of FTC she was ordered to pay a total of £523 in costs and fines for two charges under the act.