Fined for "littering" after trying to recycle at a Sliema bring-in site. What are my options?

I really need to vent and get some advice from anyone who has dealt with this.

I consider myself a law-abiding citizen and I always try to do my part for our community. Recently, I was doing some clearing out and had a set of really good quality curtains. I genuinely didn't want them to end up dumped in a field, so I took them down to the local bring-in site in Sliema to put them in the used clothes bin.

The problem? The curtains were just too big and bulky to fit through the narrow slot of the clothing bin. Since I still wanted them to be reused or recycled, I left them neatly folded in a large Lidl bag literally right next to the clothes bin. My logical thinking was that whoever empties the bins or picks up the blue skips would see it's perfectly good fabric and take it, or someone passing by might even grab them to use.
Instead, I just received a fine in the mail for "littering."
I am absolutely outraged. I was genuinely trying to recycle, and I feel like I'm being punished exactly the same as someone who illegally dumps a broken fridge on the side of the road.

Has anyone successfully appealed something like this with LESA? How do I prove my intentions were good and that I wasn't just maliciously dumping garbage? Any advice on what I should do next would be hugely appreciated!