A woman has been fined £100 by her local council for being too short to put rubbish in her bin.

Tia Goldsmith has been sent a letter informing her she has been fined £$1200 for leaving cardboard rubbish next to her bin when she could reach to drop it inside.

Tia, 36, has lodged an appeal against the fine on the grounds that at 4ft tall she was not big enough to put the recyclables into the wheelie bin.

The trouble started when Tia dragged cardboard packaging from a new fireplace to the alley behind her home.

Unable to get it into the bin she left the rubbish next to it - hoping the bin men would take it away, reports PlymouthLive.

When they didn't a warden saw what had been left behind - and issued a fine.

Tia says she has been told to pay the fine or risk being taken to court. She said: "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.

"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.

"I don't understand it - there's no logic."

Tia, who has achondroplasia, said: "I don't class myself as someone who is disabled, but I am aware I am at a disadvantage compared to average height people," Tia said.

"I told the council about my condition, that it's difficult for me, to reach the bins at the best of times.

"I said, under the Disability Discrimination Act, it can actively change its procedures for people with a disability."

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Tia says her circumstances have been ignored by council officials.

"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.

"I've been told I should have checked to see if someone had come to collect my rubbish on the day.

"But no-one checks that someone has collected their rubbish.

"You just expect, when you pay council tax, for someone to come along and pick it all up.

"So what will happen at Christmas, when people order from Amazon need large cardboard boxes taken away? What if they don't fit inside their bins?"

She added: "I've been fined for littering two cardboard boxes next to my bin in the alleyway next door to me."

In a statement, 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."