If they’re fining people for coffee, they need to fine every shop that sells crisps or sweets, because sweet wrappers and crisp packets are ubiquitous and probably fill up our drainage channels…. The toxins in those wrappers as they decompose are probably far worse than a few millilitres of coffee…

This new spillage is from 4 days ago [Link] There was another spillage from a bus garage a year or so ago as well. I wonder if they were fined as much as the coffee lady?

The beauty of wup 6mdm - and not an argument in sight.

I think.it depends where you live. It isn’t where I live. This gives more information. [Link]

Same old Wombles. Taking the piss.

What about scary ass clowns?

We have combined sewers in this country, I thought?

Technically you cannot pour anything (even a bottle of water).down a gully. They are purely for surface rainwater and not water or fluid from anywhere else. How many people would even know this as they just look like any other sort of waste drain. Pouring a bit of coffee would have a negligible impact given how diluted it would become so a quiet warning to this lady would have been appropriate, not a disproportionately fine. Rather than having enforcement officers targeting somebody like her there are far easier and more pressing examples of pollution they should devote resources to. I've seen people changing the pil on their car and pouring it down a gully in years gone by. They are knowingly committing an offense. This woman wasn't.

Thames Water clearly has a mix of customers as they recently gave us a rebate as they decided they had been wrongly charging us for collecting water from our roof.

I'm no expert in drains but the point of separating rainwater (be it from roofs via guttering and downpipes or a gully from surface water) is it can be reused without treatment whereas wastewater needs to be treated at a sewage works. The council don't like rainwater going to the sewers because they say it overloads the system, hence why now if you tarmac your front garden to make it a parking space you need a grill or soakage for the water so it does not flow into a gully, even if you are just resurfacing it (I think the rules changed in about 2008 as a neighbour of mine got caught out about this when they came to sell their house).

Under Section 33 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, it is an offence to dispose of waste—including liquids—in a way that could pollute land or water. This includes pouring drinks like coffee into street gullies or drains, which are part of the surface water drainage system and not designed for waste disposal

Stuff like the topic of conversation today is what the Internet in general and this guestbook in particular was invented for. Love it!

WJ probably something like coffee isn't but the caffeine in it is?

Also had a look (with the help of ChatGPT) and it tells me coffee is not classified as a controlled substance under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (EPA 1990) in the UK.

Bought my concession seat for a tenner did not see donation option anywhere. Using Donstix.

6M - in winter months when it’s very cold, sometimes you can see steam coming from the drain covers in the middle of the road because someone is letting out the water from a hot bath - so is that going along an open “pipe” or channel that’s distinct from the rainwater gully channel?

Have just looked at the link to the EP act in the article. I challenge anyone to show how this prohibits what the lady did. It is indecipherable gobbledegook and if I was sitting as a magistrate i would throw any case like this out, unless there were clear signs showing that this type of action was prohibited. Good law is easy to understand and simple to know if you are breaking it.

Coffee-pouring lady one of the top stories in the Torygraph 😃

Would be interesting to know if the Enforcement Officers are salaried and/or on commission.

I should have said rainwater from roofs goes to a water table or soakage, although some do incorrectly also find their way to sewers. Waste water from a sink should never go to the same destination as a gully.

Woking - it’s a tenner because I’m an old git 👴🏻 and Trigg - yes I think it was my own ineptitude 🤪 but I’m happy to forego the quid 😂

Even if she spilled it? A quiet word and all this goes away but a some enforcement idiots have made the council look stupid and wasting taxpayer money. I see workman throwing leftover tea out all the time, usually on grass but they're not too fussy where it lands.

Pouring it on the pavement would have been an offence. Would pouring water down the gully be an offence? even if it was raining?

Concessions are £10. I was given the option to skip the donation too. Presumably, if you have a donations option it goes to our club but if you just hike the price up it is shared with Gateshead and whoever else the FA cone up with. Pipes from toilets and sinks are treated as wastewater and go to the sewer, so pouring coffee down a sink is fine. Rain water either goes to a water table or a soakage. No idea where rainwater from a gully goes. Presumably a water table too, unless it's near a river. How that woman was treated over pouring coffee down a gully is disgusting. If she just poured some on the pavement would that have been an offense?

Suggest that's user error A4E.