Woman With Disability Fined For Being Too Short To Throw Her Rubbish Into Her Bin

2019-12-09 , 8:00 am

Life has a funny way of kicking the sh*t out of you when you’re down.

Woke up late for work and only have 15 minutes to shower, change, and reach your workplace? Here, have some explosive diarrhoea.

Sitting for an exam that is making your head spin with words you didn’t even know existed? Here, have some explosive diarrhoea.

Travelling on a coach that just made a stopover and will likely not stop for the next four hours? Here, have some explosive diarrhoea and nausea.

I’m not sure why life enjoys giving us explosive diarrhoea so much, but it certainly likes to make us suffer when we’re already in a pickle, as this woman in England can attest to.

Fined for being too short to throw rubbish

A woman in Plymouth, England was fined £100 (~S$176) by her local council for being too short to put rubbish in her bin.

Tia Goldsmith received a letter informing her that she had been fined for leaving cardboard rubbish next to her bin instead of putting it inside.

Sure, that sounds doable, but there’s just one problem; Tia isn’t tall enough to reach the bin’s opening.

You see, Tia has achondroplasia, a bone growth disorder that causes disproportionate dwarfism. People with achondroplasia are short in stature with short limbs and a normal sized torso.

So, when she was unable to get her rubbish into the bin, she placed the rubbish next to it, hoping the public waste collectors would take it away.

Unfortunately, they didn’t. A warden later spotted the rubbish and issued a fine.

Lodged appeal

Shocked, the 36-year-old woman lodged an appeal against the fine on the grounds that at 4ft (122cm) tall, she was not big enough to put the recyclables into the wheelie bin.

She says that she’s been told to pay the fine or risk being taken to court.

But Tia isn’t backing down.

“I think it’s disgusting. I’m worried about what will happen – I am a law-abiding citizen. I have never even gone to a magistrates court,” she said.

“The way they are treating me, and the way they have gone about it, is unacceptable. I want to fight it, until the end – even if I end up having to pay the £100, at least I’d have fought it, and all over a couple of cardboard boxes.”

Disability Ignored by Council

While Tia doesn’t think of herself as disabled, she said she’s aware of the disadvantage she has compared to those of average height.

According to Wales Online, Tia even told the council about her condition and how it was difficult for her to reach the bins.

“I said, under the Disability Discrimination Act, [the council] can actively change its procedures for people with a disability”, she said.

But she said her circumstances were ignored by the council.

“I said in my first lot of calls to them that I have not had any acknowledgement of my appeal letter,” she said. “Not one person has taken ownership of it”.

Council response

In response to Tia’s protests, a Plymouth City Council spokesman said: “We are unable to explain the full set of circumstances that led to this Fixed Penalty Notice being issued because it remains an ongoing case”.

“Litter and fly-tipping in the back lanes of Plymouth is an issue regularly reported to us by residents and, as we have heavily publicised, issuing fixed penalty notices is one of the ways that we are trying to tackle this”, they added.

Can’t they just, you know, look at her to corroborate her appeal? Any human with a functional mind would be able to understand that this fine is ridiculous and unfair considering her disability.

One can only hope that Tia will be successful in her appeal.

Either that or the council is made up of Mark Zuckerbergs.

Woman With Disability Fined For Being Too Short To Throw Her Rubbish Into Her Bin

Fined for being too short to throw rubbish

Lodged appeal

Disability Ignored by Council

Council response

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