New publications this month:

DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY (BEIS)

Meeting climate change requirements if there’s no Brexit deal

This guidance document has been updated reflect recent legislation extending the 2018 compliance deadline for the surrender of allowances for the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) from the 15 March 2019 to the 26 March 2019.

ENVIRONMENT AGENCY

Disposing of trees and plants affected by disease or pests: RPS 71

This guidance document has been amended to allows trees and plants affected by disease or bests to be burnt in the open fire under a Plant Health Notice. 

Businessman jailed for running three illegal waste sites

A businessman has been sentenced and ordered to pay a large sum for running three illegal waste sites in Kidderminster and Stanford Bridge in Worcestershire.

Sidney Nicholls had accepted waste onto the three sites without suitable environmental permits. Waste exemptions for the sites were breached as part of these activities. The man had operated under the trading names UKBF Group Ltd and Plastics Recycling Centre Ltd.

Environment Agency officers visited the sites and identified issues including:

• large amounts of assorted types of waste, including hazardous waste, being stored and treated illegally;
• plastics contaminated with dairy and wine products were stored with no measures in place to prevent the liquids from polluting the nearby Staffordshire and Worcester Canal or River Severn; and
• a failure to comply with the registered waste exemptions.

Although Sidney Nicholls assured the Environment Agency he would remove high-risk waste and apply for the necessary environmental permit. He failed to do so. After an enforcement notice was issued by the Environment Agency, waste was moved between the two Kidderminster sites. Ultimately Sidney Nicholls moved waste after he was evicted from a site in Kidderminster, transferring the material to the site in Stanford Bridge.

Penalty

Sidney Nicholls was sentenced to one year in prison, suspended for two years and ordered to pay £30,000.

Environment Agency day-long sting confirms 11 illegal waste sites

After the largest one-day sting operation ever undertaken in Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire, the Environment Agency found that 11 out of 28 sites visited were operating illegally.

Environment Agency officers found six sites where waste has been burnt, a further three containing construction and demolition waste, one containing household waste, and one scrapyard.

Furniture, plastic, insulation, car parts, fuel containers, chimney-sweeping equipment and even a lawn mower and skis were among the items discovered.

Action taken

The illegal sites will now receive written guidance from the Environment Agency clarifying the steps they must take and the follow-up visits which will be arranged to ensure future compliance.

Vehicle seized and waste carrier to pay almost £5,000

A 24-year-old man has been fined after being found guilty of transporting controlled waste without a waste carriers’ licence.

After being pulled over by police on the A612 in Nottingham, an Environment Agency officer examined Gyula Ruszo’s van. The officer identified that the van did not have a MOT and was uninsured.

The van was carrying various items of scrap metal, including a copper hot water tank, lengths of copper piping, a washing machine, lead flashing and a metal lawn mower. Mr Ruszo did not hold a waste carrier’s licence.

Anyone transporting waste as part of their normal business, whether it is their waste or someone else’s must have a Waste Carriers Licence.

Penalty

Gyula Ruszo was fined £1,760, ordered to pay Environmental Agency Costs of £2,995 and a victim surcharge of £170.