Woman fined £150 for pouring coffee down drain

This story is really poor and badly reported, as it doesn't explain WHY the Environmental Protection Act 1990 has these fines in place and why what this women did was wrong. Instead it's a clickbait story that implies the woman is a victim.

In the UK (and like many places) there are 2 systems of water drainage in urban areas - the surface water drainage (which is for rainwater) and the sewage system (which is dirty and drains toilets, home sinks, etc).

The surface water drainage runs eventually into fresh water such as lakes, rivers, and the sea, untreated. So if you pour coffee down a rain drain, it is contaminating the fresh water. It may seem ridiculous to fine someone for the dregs of one coffee, but if everyone were putting waste water in the rainwater drains / gutters it would have a detrimental impact on the ecosystem. It's already a huge problem as people DO put contaminated water into these drains, probably due to widespread ignorance.

The sewage system is for contaminated waste; that water is collected and treated and either reused for drinking water or then released back into the fresh water system. Finish your coffee OR take it with you to a place where you can dispose of it into the sewage system.

She needs to pay her fine, educate herself and understand she is not a victim here. She did something wrong.

It’s already a huge problem as people DO put contaminated water into these drains, probably due to widespread ignorance.
You talk of ecosystems, but we're talking about a beverage made entirely of natural biodegradable ingredients. It's bean water. You may as well complain about the runoff coming out of a nature preserve.
What she did was right. It was safe. Your slippery slope would apply to bulk dumping or actually dangerous liquids. In reality, roads and roofs are covered with all kinds of dirt and things, all of which gets washed into the storm sewer every time it rains. But here you are pretending a quarter cup of coffee could possibly be problematic.
So all the diesel runoff from leaky lorries, tractors, badly maintained vehicles etc and, whatever else that gets spilt on the roads goes into our waterways untreated?
Plus Thames water has been releasing raw sewage into our waterways.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-67357566
- The fact that that happens is not a reason to allow free dumping into the storm drains though. There’s not a ready solution for motor oil drips that happen to leak from a truck. There is a solution to homeowners wanting to dispose of 4 quarts of oil after an oil change.
  The dumping laws make sense, this was just a stupid application of them.
Thanks for explaining
In the UK (and like many places) there are 2 systems of water drainage
Not necessarily, older systems tend to be combined systems where sewage and rainwater go down the same pipes and are treated before going into the river. London (where this story takes place) is like this as the system was built in the 1800s when they didn't care about treating water before it went into the Thames. This becomes a problem when it rains too much and it overwhelms the treatment system so they just dump untreated sewage into the Thames like the good old days.
Then again maybe they're building a parallel separated system to try and reduce the load during heavy rains. Ie. We were rebuilding this road anyway, might as well connect it to a new storm water drainage system instead of sending it to the old Victorian one, and that's why they don't want people dumping.
Your main point is correct for most people living in places that were developed in the 1920s or later, don't dump shit in the storm drains.
This story is really poor and badly reported, as it doesn't explain WHY the Environmental Protection Act 1990 has these fines in place and why what this women did was wrong. Instead it's a clickbait story that implies the woman is a victim.
That has already been explained in the article. 👀
Section 33 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 makes it an offence to deposit or dispose of waste in a way likely to pollute land or water, including pouring liquids into street drains.
- Any liquid? So if you poured a cup of pure water in a street drain, you would be fined?

This is one of those times it pays to actually read the article. The fine has been thrown out. Whatever patrol men ran up and fined her for polluting waterways were clearly overzealous and the council threw the charge out when she appealed it.

The storm drains in my area all have prominent “no dumping” signs on them, because they do drain to sensitive waterways that would impact wildlife and the environment if they were polluted. But I think the main thrust of this is keeping people from dumping their anti-freeze and motor oil and old gasoline and paint and shit like that.

So on the one hand, I kind of understand the instinct to say “hey don’t dump your shit there, that’s a storm drain” but obviously a few sips of coffee isn’t going to hurt anything.

The article was updated a few hours ago but when it was originally posted and accumulated its first slew of upvotes, the fine hadn't been rescinded yet and the only statement from the council was that their enforcement officers had acted appropriately and the fine was appropriate.
Also, in much of the UK, the surface water and foul water drains both go into a single combined sewer system, with areas that have been built up for centuries like this one being most likely to still use that old approach.
- They clearly only rescinded it because of the media attention. The real story is that England’s councils are now so stripped to the bone on austerity that they’re hiring roaming enforcers to enforce fines on obscure regulations and instruments to raise money.
Seriously. If you wouldn't fine them for littering by dumping the coffee on the pavement right beside the drain (which it would washinto on the first rainstorm) then they shouldn't fine them for anything by dumping it directly into the drain.
No one is going to get fined for dumping coffee on the sidewalk. But they might get fined for dumping oil or paint on the sidewalk.
- Yeah that’s a good point. Can you imagine getting a ticket because you spilled your coffee?
Reading this it feels like you people still live in the middle ages, dumping the contents of shitpans out the window. ^^
- Who is “you people” and how do you get that? I just spent the whole comment talking about how we don’t allow dumping in the storm drains.
At least it's organic shrug

Thank fuck they're cracking down on this rather than the water companies knowingly spilling raw sewage into our waterways.

They said she should have poured the coffee into a bin instead?! I think the garbage men disagree, they dont like liquids in the trash

Can confirm, binmen hate coffee bin juice

Based on the title alone I thought that she was a barista who poured hundreds of liters of coffee down the drain or something which might make sense. But no, just the last sip on her cup in order to prevent it from spilling in the bus or causing problems in the trash bin. Do they fine people if they accidentally drop their full cup too?

There are 9.8m people in London. If everyone was pouring the dregs of their coffee into the surface water drainage it'd be an environmental mess.
Contaminated fluids including dregs of coffee belong in the sewage system, not the surface water drainage system. This is literally the same as pouring coffee into a river or a lake - that's where the surface water system is designed to run to directly, untreated. In London, that's the Thames receiving that directly.
- I throw leftover coffee into the yard by the car door when I find one, been doing it for 20 years and yard seems about the same, even with the recent drought.

Apart from the stupidity of the fine itself, why is it 150 but only 100 if you can pay it in 14 days? Thats insane. "You cant afford to pay this fine immediately so pay more"????

Fines are for the poor.
- Yeah thats my point along with my never ending horror of the capitalist dystopia we live in
Makes people less inclined to fight or ignore it when there's a time limit like that.
It's the same with speeding fines and parking tickets, and the white collar criminals that call themselves car park management companies. Many folk just pay rather than appeal, thinking that the time it takes to appeal will mean they end up paying full price, but I'm pretty sure the clock is paused during the appeal process.
- I've contested many a fine, I fucking hate those parking sharks. The clock is indeed stopped until a decision is made.
  Then it's usually back to the original terms of payment stated on the OG fine.
  I've even contested friends fines as well, I'd rather spend the 30 minutes appealing than let any of those companies get more revenue.
  This is in the UK at least...
  I got a speeding ticket in France and to contest it you have to pay the full fine (€90) and if you were successful with the appeal then you'd get that money refunded.

For the last bit of a single coffee? That's a fully organic compound.

You'd probably get the same fine for emptying a drum of used motor oil into it.

Not the Onion...

to deposit or dispose of waste in a way likely to pollute land or water

Its not "likely" at all tho, because the drain leads to a water treatment plant that constantly deals with literal feces...

It's the UK. It's a big scandal at the moment that most of the drains lead to rivers, lakes and the sea with only a small fraction of sewage actually being processed before being released from the processing plant. The fines for not processing the sewage were smaller than the costs of building and running treatment plants, so the water companies have just been paying the fines and giving all the money they were paid to build the treatment plants to shareholders as dividends. As no one's broken any laws they haven't already nominally been punished for, there aren't any realistic and politically tenable solutions unless billions of pounds can become magically available.
- Well thats fucking outrageous. That means the UK is constantly flooding the ocean with tire rubber, oil and gasoline, dropped trash, fecal matter from animals, etc
- We should nationalise them and don’t give them a penny. We can then fix this mess and then invest in our future.
Is coffee even considered waste?
- Yes, it is contaminated water and should not be poured into the surface drainage system. It doesn't connect to the sewers, it is separate and drains freely into rivers, lakes etc.
That is incorrect - there are 2 water drainage systems in the UK. Surface water / rain goes into the surface system and that flows freely into the water table untreated (rivers, lakes etc). It is not designed for dirty water.
The sewage system is totally separate - that is for contaminated water (toilets, sinks) and that goes to sewage treatment plants. It should be treated before it is released into the freshwater system.
So yes, it IS polluting the fresh water by putting things into the rain drainage system.
- Yeah i have already learned from other comments that the UK is uncivilized but thanks for the clarification.
They are supposed to, except that the water companies just chuck half of into rivers, untreated, to protect their profit margins, and until very recently got away with it scot free.
- Is this a UK specific problem? In most countries water treatment are municipal services paid for by either taxes or levies.

The distinction here is she poured it into an outdoor gutter/drain, so a bit like littering. It's a sort of thing if one person does it it's probably fine but if everybody does it can be bad for the environment. Because what goes down outdoor drains is not usually treated. But even if it's wrong at least give her a warning.

That makes no sense to me, because you will literally have feces from animals, dead birds and other animals, etc.
- That's kinda what I would think too, but coffee doesn't belong there. If too many people dump coffee it will be bad, like this: https://coloradosun.com/2021/12/27/urine-high-country-lakes-colorado-caffeine-study-human-pee/
It's only not treated because the UK has a massive problem with not treating sewage. In the UK, storm drains flow into the same sewers as toilets and go to the same waste treatment plants, where everything gets pumped out the same emergency overflow pipe into open water because there are millions more people in the UK than there were fifty years ago, and sewage treatment capacity is virtually unchanged because it's cheaper to pay the fines for emergency overflow than to build more treatment plants.
- That is not correct - the surface drainage system should be regarded as separate from the sewage system, even though both run under the roads. There is the surface water system and the foul water system. It's true that in some places surface drainage may go into the sewage system but that is the exception rather than the rule. Surface drainage is usually designed to move as rapidly as possible into nearby fresh water to prevent flooding.
  Surface drainage water is allowed to drain freely into water courses, rivers and lakes, completely untreated. The sewage system is for contaminated water (from toilets and sinks etc) and is designed to go to treatments plants where it SHOULD be treated. It is true that that treatment is not happening, and when there are storms the sewage system can be overrun with water companies currently getting away with dumping contaminated sewage into the rivers which is a scandal.

Whilst they are technically correct this is overzealous use of the law and by three of them, it looks like a police force with too many officers looking for easy targets.

They can’t turn up to hate crimes so gang let’s go looking for minuscule crimes that people can be tripped up on. I wouldn’t even cause it civil disobedience as it’s not a crime that’s even educated on.

They might be right and even after review the service can say they are technically right however this is not a good look and erodes trust in authority.

They were council enforcement rather than police. I suspect if she appealed she would have been let off, but some folk think then they'll have to pay the full amount because they missed the early payment discount window, which I don't think is the case.
Also, what's the difference between this and pouring coffee in the kitchen sink at home? Those enforcement officers were just chancing it.
I disagree; the whole purpose of the enforcement officers is to enforce the environment act. This thread alone shows why - it seems few people are aware there are 2 totally separate water drainage systems under the roads - the clean one for rainwater drainage, and the dirty one for sewage.
People seem to think if you pour something down a rain by the side of the street it will reach the sewers - it will not; it will run with other surface water untreated into the water courses, rivers or lakes. The sewers are totally separate and drain to treatment plants where the water should be treated before being released into the water system.
Unfortunately the article skirts over that whole element of the story. Its making this woman seem like she's a victim instead of educating herself and others.

I wonder if those officers knew it was illegal before they took up the job?

It shouldn't be illegal. It's a responsible disposal of an organic liquid.
- It's a bit of a grey area.
  Coffee is full of lipids, which build up in the sewer just like pouring oil down the drain. Coffee shops need a grease trap for that reason. (Google says UK does this, I know it's legislation here in Aus, we mostly copy your homework anyway)
  One small bit of a cup isn't going to break anything, but infrastructure planning and legislation has to assume that a percentage of people will do it, some of them all the time.
  I don't think she should have been fined and I do think that 3 men ganging up on a small woman to berate her about a coffee is bonkers.
- It's irresponsible; the rain gutters are for clean surface water wash off and drain freely into water courses, rivers, lakes etc untreated; they're totally separate from the sewers even though both systems run under the roads. Organic liquids should be disposed off via the sewage system - so down a toilet or a sink - where the water should be treated before being released back into the water table.
  If everyone were disposing of contaminated water in the surface drainage system we'd be in big trouble.
I hope these officers get fines if they throw away that last bit of coffee before going on patrol.

Woman does thing, UK Goverment offened.

This is payback for the citizens arrest of Anglian Water CEO

I would suggest that everyone in richmond now has a duty to pour a cup of coffee into a council bin, since that is the correct place to pour coffee.

Yeah that advice was bad from the council. Dirty water goes in a toilet or a sink so it reaches the sewage system where it is supposed to be treated. Only clean water such as rain water goes in the surface water drainage system - it drains freely into the water table untreated. They are 2 totally separate systems and there seems to be shocking ignorance about their existence and what a gutter on the road is. People seem to think it drains into the sewers.

Where in France is that ?

Just pour on ground.