WIREDGOV

Tougher penalties for serious waste crimes being handed out by courts

The Environment Agency yesterday announced that successful prosecutions for waste crimes resulted in fines totalling £3 million last year. The amount has doubled in the last five years.

The Environment Agency’s crackdown on waste crime – from flytipping to the illegal export of waste – has led to an increase in the severity of penalties handed down by the courts. This week the Environment Agency secured its largest ever waste fine – £261,268 – after the soft drinks company Red Bull failed to meet its requirements to recover and recycle packaging waste. The company was ordered to pay £3,755 in costs to the Environment Agency as well as compensation of £6,854.

The figures released today show that the Government’s environment watchdog prosecuted 454 waste cases last year, many of which resulted in hefty fines, and even prison sentences. Offences range from storing waste without a licence to the large scale flytipping of hazardous waste, and the illegal export of waste for disposal abroad.

In the last twelve months the Environment Agency has created a new National Environmental Crime Team made up of around 20 former-detectives, intelligence officers and forensics experts. The team was set up to target organised waste crime, and they are specialists in recovering the proceeds of crime.

Earlier this month a West Midlands based metal recovery company was fined £15,000 and ordered to pay over £7,000 in prosecution costs for attempting to illegally export hazardous waste cables to China. The container of cables never made it onto the boat, as the lorry carrying the waste to the port of Felixstowe was reported to the Environment Agency after it was spotted leaking onto the road. Tests by Environment Agency chemists found the leaking liquid contained mineral oil as well as carcinogenic coal tar. The oil was contained by absorbent booms to prevent it polluting the drains and roadside soil.

Also in July a building and joinery company was ordered to pay over £15,000 in fines and costs after illegally keeping and treating thousands of tonnes of waste on a farm in the Midlands without a licence. The waste, which was kept on open fields, included builders’ rubble, plastic, smouldering green waste and broken furniture. As well as blighting the local landscape, by keeping and burning waste without environmental controls this site risked contaminating the surrounding land and groundwater.

In May a serial fly tipper was jailed for two and a half years for repeatedly collecting household and business waste for a fee, and then dumping it around Bristol and the surrounding countryside. His illegal activities cost the Environment Agency, local landowners and the local authorities tens of thousands of pounds in investigation and clean up costs. After the man was arrested, reports of fly tipping in and around Bristol decreased by over 30 per cent.

Liz Parkes, Head of Waste and Resource Management at the Environment Agency, said:

“This is not about people putting rubbish in the wrong bins – we concentrate on those individuals and companies whose illegal activities have the potential to cause serious damage to the environment.

“The rules on how to handle, transport and dispose of waste are in place to protect the environment and people’s health, in this country and abroad. The Environment Agency takes swift and decisive action against anyone who flouts these strict controls.

“The increase in the level of fines reflects how seriously the Environment Agency and the courts are taking waste offences.”

ENDS

Media enquiries: 020 7863 8710 or outside normal office hours, please contact the National Duty Press Officer on 07798 882 092.

NOTES TO EDITORS

Year on year trends in Environment Agency waste prosecutions:              

Recent waste prosecution case studies:

ANGLIAN

In January an illegal waste site was fined £171,000 and ordered to pay £5,952 in costs after dumping, burying and burning waste, including asbestos, at a farm in Essex.  The waste, which was made up of metal, plastic, wood, paper, asbestos, insulation material and electrical equipment, not only blighted the local landscape, but endangered the health of the company’s workers due to the presence of asbestos.

MIDLANDS

A Cheltenham man was fined £2,000 and served with a 12 month community service order in June for illegally storing and burning waste without a waste management licence. The court heard that the types of waste seen at the site included rubble, gas fireplaces, wooden doors and gas cylinders. Despite repeated warnings from the Environment Agency, the man continued to operate illegally, putting the local environment at risk.

SOUTHERN

A Kent man was given a 12 month supervision order and told to pay the Environment Agency £1,000 in costs in April after allowing rubbish to be deposited illegally on his land. His property had been under investigation by Environment Agency officers after a number of lorries were seen depositing waste onto the site. The company depositing the waste illegally avoided considerable disposal costs and the director was later arrested and prosecuted, with the director and his company receiving a fine totalling £29,000.

SOUTH WEST

A Bristol garage selling high-performance cars was ordered to pay £6,460 in fines and costs in January for dumping waste at a fly-tipping blackspot in the city. The company dumped green waste, window frames, garage signs and packaging at a derelict factory site which had become increasingly targeted by fly-tippers who dumped waste both in and outside the old factory buildings. The local fire service was called to the site 19 times in two years to deal with waste fires, as the fly-tipping spiralled out of control.

NORTH EAST

In January one of Hull’s largest waste transfer operators was fined a total of £24,000 for releasing clouds of wood dust into the air. The dust, which affected neighbouring businesses and covered cars parked nearby, was released when a loading shovel transferred a large pile of wood chip onto a lorry.  Lack of space meant that the waste was being stored outside its permitted area, and the company did nothing to suppress the dust. The company had been fined twice previously for releasing wood dust into the local environment.

NORTH WEST

The operator of an illegal landfill site in Cheshire was fined £50,000 in March for allowing thousands of tonnes of controlled waste to be deposited. The operator intended to use five hundred thousand tonnes of waste on the site to raise the ground levels and eventually construct a polo pitch. The waste included construction, demolition and excavation waste, and ash produced from incinerators all of which have the potential to harm the environment and human health. 

WALES

The director of a plastics recycling company was fined £16,000 in June after abandoning waste at a recycling site in Tredegar, Gwent when his company closed down. The court heard that the recycling company stopped trading after it ran into financial difficulty and could not repair the machinery needed to recycle the plastic brought to the site.  Despite this, the company continued to deposit waste inside the business unit and on surrounding land.  The company then abandoned the site without removing any of the waste. It was left to the Environment Agency and the owner of the business park on which the company rented premises to organise the clean up and safe disposal of the waste.

THAMES

Two companies were fined a total of £34,000 in March for depositing unauthorised waste including car parts at a golf course development in Ruislip. The site developer was fined £20,000 for accepting the waste and the demolition contractor was fined £14,000 for depositing the waste. Both companies were ordered to pay £6,896.45 each towards Environment Agency costs. Materials dumped on the golf course contained plastic and metal vehicle parts including parts of seat belts, a water reservoir, vehicle name badges, a wheel and a plastic grille. The court heard that an agreement was reached between the developer and the demolition contractor to allow the dumping of the waste, avoiding legitimate waste disposal charges and endangering the environment.