Waste company owner given suspended prison sentence for waste tyre offences
The owner of a tyre waste business has today been given a 15 month custodial sentence, suspended for 2 years, and a 2 year supervision order after illegally storing almost 84,659 waste tyres at several sites in Devon. The case was brought by the Environment Agency.
Mayhew rented commercial premises from January 2013 to February 2014 and collected or received end of use tyres and then disposed of them by sending them to an illegal place for disposal, abandoning the tyres at the premises either loose or as tyre bales or enter into contracts with haulers to transport them and then fail to pay. This led to the haulers having to dispose of them with the resultant disposal costs.
He also left the owners of 4 commercial sites with unpaid rent amounting to £15,220 and costs to remove the tyres of over £14,540. He has also saved legitimate disposal costs of £9,360 by sending 300 tonnes of end of life tyre bales to Moor Barton Farm.
Mayhew received considerable advice from the Environment Agency including guidance and general warnings regarding his activities relating to the depositing of the tyres but he deliberately ignored all advice.
Mayhew admitted to 5 counts of operating a regulated facility without an environmental permit contrary to Regulations 12(1)(a) and 38(1)(a) of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010, and received a 15 month custodial sentence suspended for 2 years and a 2 year supervision order.
Somerset farm offers £5,000 civil sanction for polluting river
Farming partnership Brunt Brothers of Clandown Farm, Clandown, near Radstock, Somerset, offer of a £5,000 donation to an environmental charity for polluting a tributary of the Wellow Brook river in Somerset has been accepted by the Environment Agency.
The partnership has offered to pay an enforcement undertaking in the form of a donation following a major pollution incident in Clandown on 2 February 2013, when the slurry store at the farm failed. This resulted in approximately 150,000 gallons of slurry surging across a yard, over a four foot wall, and spilling on to the highway and farm track.
Such was the surge and volume of slurry released that it travelled over 100 metres downhill and into the fields immediately downstream.
It entered the main Wellow Brook in the nearby town of Radstock, killing 100 trout and a small number of other species. There were 3 angling clubs on the affected stretch some of which had actively been involved in habitat work to encourage wild brown trout to thrive.
The farmers managed to recover an estimated 50 % of the slurry spilled by scraping the roads, tracks and fields.
Officers from the Environment Agency attended the incident and found the slurry 15cm deep on the road. The farmers were already taking steps to clear up the slurry and prevent further pollution of the watercourse.They had recently invested in expanding their slurry storage capacity in order to comply with the Nitrate Regulations.
Along with prosecutions, the Environment Agency use enforcement notices, stop notices and civil sanctions to either improve performance or stop sites from operating. It is making better use of the wide range of measures that are available to bring sites back into compliance as quickly as possible.
Civil sanctions such as these are a proportionate and cost-effective way for businesses to make amends for less serious environmental offences.
The enforcement undertaking for environment offences was accepted by the Agency. In any enforcement undertaking, the person or company should offer to restore or remediate the harm caused by the incident where that is possible. They may also make a financial contribution to a recognised environmental charity or project to achieve environmental benefit. The wrongdoer must also demonstrate they will change their behaviour and ensure compliance with environmental legislation. Brunt Bros offered to:
- make improvements to its slurry store and ensure compliance with the relevant legislation
- pay £5,000 to Bristol Avon Rivers Trust (BART) for work in the catchment
- payment of Environment Agency costs
Failure to comply with an enforcement undertaking may result in the person or company being prosecuted for the offence.
6 arrests in nationwide waste dumping raids
6 people were arrested during dawn raids today following a nationwide Environment Agency probe into illegal dumping of waste.
6 people were arrested during dawn raids today (Tuesday 10th March) - 4 for suspected waste offences and 2 for suspected human trafficking. This follows a nationwide Environment Agency probe into the illegal dumping of potentially hazardous waste at illegal waste sites in Bristol, Scunthorpe and Newark in Nottinghamshire. The investigation is also looking at links to an abandoned waste transfer site in Orpington run by operators Waste4Fuel.
More than 40 Environment Agency investigators, supported by Humberside, Nottinghamshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Police, swooped on suspects home addresses and the sites as part of Operation Encore.
Environment Agency crime staff from across England, including a number in specialist breathing apparatus, have been brought in to support the operation due to its large scale.
The police were deployed to support with arrests, access properties and assist with collecting evidence. The Home Office Immigration Enforcement and Social Services were also involved as part of this multi-agency operation, due to a suspected number of illegal workers at the sites.
The 6 people arrested have all been released on conditional bail pending further enquiries.
The investigation is ongoing and expected to take many more months to complete.
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