A mayor in central France has become the latest to return a pile of waste to its owner after becoming exasperated with fly-tipping and wild rubbish dumping.
Patrick Foulon, mayor of Saint-Père-sur-Loire (Loiret), returned 12 bags of rubbish to their rightful owner by dumping them in their garden in a neighbouring commune, after finding references to their address and identity among the waste.
The waste, which had been fly-tipped illegally, was the last straw in a recurring problem for the commune.
The offender was both returned their waste and fined €135.
In 24 hours, the video posted by the mayor showing him throwing the waste over the fence has been seen and shared thousands of times.
The resident asks: “What’s your problem?” The mayor responds: “My problem is that you’re throwing crap away in Saint-Père, so you’re going to pick it up yourself and stop p***ing me off!”
Later, the mayor said: “This is what we find in the commune all the time. Enough is enough, it has to stop! Our communes are not dustbins!”
Residents have welcomed his actions.
The village has two municipal officers, whose job is to tour the area to find rubbish three times a week. They always find enough to fill an entire waste truck, the mayor said.
Mr Foulon joins a long line of mayors to have become exasperated with illegal rubbish dumping and taking the rubbish back to its ‘rightful owner’.
In January 2020, 10 tonnes of illegal waste was returned to its owner thanks to council security cameras catching them in the act; while in October last year a mayor of a commune sent rubbish ‘back to sender’ after employees saw the waste being dumped.
In 2019, a mayor investigated a pile of waste before returning it to its owner, And in December, a ‘waste mafia’ boss was jailed over mass illegal dumping.
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