Cutts Recycling fire was arson, managing director says

Richard Cutts said today the fire at the paper reprocessing plant at Wharf Road had been a small fire and “at no time have operations suffered”.

” The fire may have appeared to be horrendous, but it was just a couple of loads of plastics and a few loads of paper – plastics will do that in a fire. “
– Richard Cutts, Cutts Recycling
The fire had started on Monday (June 20) at about 5.30pm, according to the South Yorkshire fire brigade (see letsrecycle.com story).

Mr Cutts said that he believed the fire was deliberate and that police were now looking into the matter. He said: “The fire was started by an arsonist – by children. Two children are being questioned by police at the moment, obviously I can't say any more about that.”

Plastics
He moved to clarify the situation, stating that no fork lift trucks had been involved in the fire, and that the “large plumes of smoke” had come from small amounts of plastics within the material that had caught fire.

“The fire may have appeared to be horrendous,” Mr Cutts explained, “But it was just a couple of loads of plastics and a few loads of paper – plastics will do that in a fire.”

He said: “It was a small fire in the stock yard that was left to burn out. There was no fork lift trucks damaged, it was just a bit of stock. Forty minutes after the fire, there were only two fire trucks. It lasted a couple of days and the operations have not been affected.”