The notice was issued to Hinton Organics’s for its site at Queen Charlton near Keynsham, Bristol, after nearby residents complained of odours drifting from the site.
The site takes waste from waste management company SITA’s green waste collections in South Gloucestershire and Bath and North East Somerset.
In January this year the company was fined 4,000 with 1,200 costs for seven breaches of its licence. Waste was being kept on the ground and not on a concrete area designed to stop polluting liquid leaking into the earth and water courses.
Last week Agency visited the site and noted that it was “storing excessive volumes and height of waste”. A statement from the Agency explained: “There was almost 50% more waste than authorised and the material smelled strongly up to a quarter of a mile away. The waste was also not being stored on a sealed concrete pad.”
Hinton Organics now has to ensure waste is reduced and the odour problems are resolved by 3 June 2005, said the Agency.
Environment Agency spokesman Ian Withers said: “We have responded to complaints about smells from the composting plant and until we are satisfied that the waste management licence conditions are being met the site is not accepting any new material.
“We hope the situation will be resolved as quickly as possible as this a key facility for green waste recycling in the area.”
Glynis Squires, business manager at Hinton Organics told letsrecycle.com that company had been aware of problems before the Environment Agency visited.
Backlog
She explained: “Just over a week prior to the visit there had been a strong easterly wind so we stopped our operations out of concern for locals. But we kept receiving material and so there was a backlog of waste to be composted.
“A week later we restarted operations, but there was extra material being stored from the backlog. We are a busy site and couldn’t get it through fast enough. The Environment Agency did their weekly visit just as we had started back up” she added.
Ms Squires said she believed the amount of material over the authorised level was closer to 25% than 50%. “There were no measuring instruments. No real measurements were taken,” she added.
Hindsight
However, she admitted: “In hindsight we should have stopped deliveries coming through the gates. We hold our hands up to that.”
The company composts about 10,000-12,000 tonnes of material a year from local composters and makes a range of products for sale at the site.
Waste management licensing rules state that compost must be stored on a concrete pad to avoid seepage of contaminants into the ground. Ms Squires explained: “One of our excavators had knocked some material onto the ground while he was tracking on and off. It is our policy that at the end of every day this will be cleared up, but the Agency thought we were storing this material.”
She said that extra equipment had been put in at the site and that the site would hopefully be open later this week.
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