Victoria Carpets of Kidderminster was fined at Kidderminster Magistrates Court for failing to take reasonable steps to recover and recycle packaging waste and for failing to furnish a certificate of compliance in respect of their recovery and recycling obligations.
Kalbir Gill, who was representing the Agency, said: “It is the producers' duty to ensure they are up to date with legislation that affects them and to fulfil their obligation of responsibility to the environment and the rest of society. The recovery and recycling of waste in increasing in the UK and throughout the European Union. We are keen to encourage this trend and will continue to prosecute companies that fail to comply with these regulations.”
Speaking yesterday at an Onyx Environmental Trust event, chairman of the Environment Agency Sir John Harman, called on the government to make more landfill tax money available to fight waste offenders. He said: “It is usual for a tax to cover enforcement, this is the only case where it doesn’t. We have a list as long as our arm of prosecutors and we need resources to make enforcement work. We have real exemption abuse, a national problem on a local scale.”
Sir John said that the Agency’s efforts to produce environmental improvements were most relevant in the waste sector. And added: “The agency has to judge its success and be judged, not on its level of activity but on environmental activity that it enforces.”
Sir John also said that the landfill tax was designed to change behaviour on the ground which it has failed to do. “The problem of flytipping and illegal disposal is on the increase. In terms of waste minimisation and enforcement these things should be better focused and more money needs to be directed on waste. The environmental end is what matters and we need a range of measures to ensure that modern environmental regulation is achieved. By modern regulation we mean that we need to ensure that regulation is done in a reasonable and efficient manner,” he added.
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