Vegetable processing company agrees enforcement undertaking with Environment Agency
Alfred G Pearce, a vegetable processing company in Wormegay, King’s Lynn, has entered into and completed an enforcement undertaking after it polluted a watercourse.
The breach arose when water used to wash carrots was discharged into the Brook Drain in Wormegay. Samples undertaken after the incident identified gross pollution of the watercourse.
Alfred G Pearce offered to enter into an enforcement undertaking with the Environment Agency, remediating damage caused by the pollution incident and making a donation to an environmental charity. Enforcement undertakings present an alternative to prosecution.
Enforcement Undertaking
The enforcement undertaking included the donation of £12,000 to the Norfolk Rivers Trust to benefit the local environment. Alfred G Pearce also paid the Environment Agency’s costs.
Breach
The enforcement undertaken was offered regarding a breach of Regulation 38 to the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010. This Regulation defines offences under this legislation.
Waste recycling company fined after illegally supplying hazardous waste to a development site
Following a five year investigation, Churngold Recycling Ltd and two of its directors have been sentenced for waste offences.
Churngold Recycling supplied soil and aggregate for the building industry from its waste transfer site in Avonmouth.
In 2011 Churngold Recycling was awarded a contract to remove hazardous waste from a site in Oxford where the car company BMW had identified extensive contamination under a building during the redevelopment of its factory. Trial pits and testing revealed high levels of heavy metals, hydrocarbons and asbestos contaminated materials.
31,000 tonnes of hazardous waste from BMW’s site was removed to the facility in Avonmouth for treatment prior to its use as a building material. The volume of waste held quickly exceeded the transfer station’s limit of 6,000 tonnes.
At the site time, Churngold Recycling was awarded a contract to supply 60,00 tonnes of stabilised aggregate to the site of a new Co-operative supermarket distribution centre in Avonmouth. Over one fortnight 64,000 tonnes of material was delivered to the distribution centre site.
Ground-workers at the distribution centre site complained that the material from Churngold Recycling gave them ‘runny and sore eyes’. One worker said it smelt like ‘faeces and bleach’ and ‘took his breath away.’ Others described the clay-like material as ‘smelling like a hospital’.
An investigation identified that waste from the BMW site had been partially treated for the presence of asbestos, but some remained within the material taken to the distribution centre. A former Churngold employee notified to the Co-operative that contaminated material had been delivered to their new distribution centre at Cabot Park. Later analysis revealed the presence of asbestos in 47 of 60 samples, high levels of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) as well as significant levels of leachable lead, cyanide, copper, antimony and total sulphate concentrations that posed a risk to groundwater and nearby watercourses.
The investigation found that Churngold Recycling had held volumes of waste in excess of its permitted limited, preventing effective segregation or treatment.
The Environment Agency had earlier advised Churngold that waste containing heavy metals remained hazardous even after it has undergone a stabilisation process. The court heard that a director (Lee Phelan) had worked in the waste industry, he had no qualifications or experience of treating hazardous waste.
Work on the distribution centre site was suspended following analysis of the incoming material. The Environment Agency confirmed the material was illegally deposited hazardous waste and that it should be removed to a suitable waste facility for safe disposal.
The Environment Agency investigation revealed that Churngold Recycling had also illegally disposed of hazardous waste including asbestos, railway sleepers, plastic, metal pipes, vehicle tyres and foam pipe lagging at a second site in Severnside.
Breaches
The two directors, John Barcham and Lee Phelan, were found guilty of one and three offences respectively. The company was found guilty of four offences.
Churngold recycling was found to have breached the following legislation:
John Barcham and Lee Phelan were both found guilty of breaching Regulation 38(2) of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010.
Lee Phelan was also found guilty to breaching Section 33(1)(a) and 33(1)(c) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
Penalties
Churngold Recycling was fined a total of £22,450.
Lee Phelan was sentenced to a six month sentence suspended for 12 months and two one month sentences suspended for 12 months. Lee Phelan was also ordered to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work.
John Barcham received a six month sentence suspended for 12 months and costs of £10,00 alongside 75 hours of unpaid work.
Wiltshire Scrapyard and recycling company operator ordered to pay nearly £2 million
Lee Hazel, the owner of Melksham Metals Recycling, has received a major confiscation order following a five year Environment Agency investigation.
An investigation by the Environment Agency had found that Lee Hazel had been undertaking the illegal disposal of waste on farmland and depositing and processing waste without an environmental permit. Mr Hazel and his company were found to have dumped stone off-cuts and sludge at a farm on the outskirts of Melksham beside an old canal, as well as undertaking unauthorised activities at separate premises on Bath Road, Melksham.
Lee Hazel was caught after an enforcement officer from Wiltshire Council found waste materials including chalky stone, tarmac road planings and concrete pipes dumped in fields at a farm beside the disused Wiltshire to Berkshire Canal. The officer followed a line of ‘chalky liquid’ in the road outside the farm back to the premises occupied by Melksham Metals.
Hazel had a history of offences. He had previously been sentenced for illegal waste activities during trials in 2016, 2015 and 2014.
Penalty
Lee Hazel was ordered to pay a confiscation order for £1.99 million under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 or face eight years in prison.
Melksham Metals was also ordered to pay an additional fine of £700 across seven offences, a nominal rate due to the size of the confiscation order.
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