Two individuals sentenced for waste crime
Herefordshire council announced on 29 November that two individuals were sentenced after pleading guilty to fly tipping at Worcester Crown Court.
The council said that at a sentencing hearing on 24 November, Zackery Biddle, 23, and Jessie Biddle 26, both of Openfields, Bromyard, were handed sentences for fly tipping on council land at Openfields caravan site in Bromyard, Herefordshire.
A third individual, Declynd Mellings, 21, also of Openfields, was ordered to carry out community work, the local authority added.
The court heard that that the group advertised cheap waste collections on local Facebook groups at a time when recycling centres were closed due to the pandemic. The council’s community protection team visited the site in May 2020, finding an “enormous” amounts of fly tipping, which triggered an investigation, the council said.
It stated that both Zackery and Jessie Biddle pleaded guilty to multiple charges of fly tipping and received custodial sentence of 54 and 44 weeks. Considered to have played a lesser role in the operation, Declynd Mellings was given a 12-month community order to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work.
Old tyres a fire risk in West Sussex
The Environment Agency announced yesterday (7 December) that two men running a recycling business in West Sussex were fined for storing tyres outside their permit.
The Agency explained that Gerard Harkin and Dex Boyle, both from Portsmouth, recovered scrap tyres at Twyford Recycling Ltd beside a busy road and railway in Chichester.
The regulator outlined that the company was prosecuted for operational without an environmental permit. It added that Brighton magistrates’ court heard that investigators began looking into the company two years ago after receiving an anonymous complaint.
According to the Agency, surplus tyres piled high created the risk of fire close to the A27 dual carriageway and the Chichester-to-Portsmouth railway line, with the river Lavant nearby.
Harkin and Boyle both pleaded guilty to allowing Twyford Recycling Ltd to deposit, treat and store tyres outside the company’s environmental permit, the Agency said. The company admitted three charges, also pleading guilty to failing to provide waste transfer notes of some of the tyres.
Twyford Recycling Ltd was fined £500, paying £500 in costs and a victim surcharge of £50. Harkin and Boyle were each given 40 hours of unpaid work.
Publication of environmental targets ‘intended’ in 2022
The government intends to publish environmental targets for which it missed the deadline in October “before the end of the year”.
The claim was made on 6 December by the environment minister Trudy Harrison in response to a written question by Dan Carden, Labour MP for Liverpool, Walton.
Mr Carden asked what the planned timetable is for setting statutory targets for air and water quality, biodiversity and waste and resource efficiency under the Environment Act 2022.
Ms Harrison answered: “As the secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs set out in a written statement published on 28 October, we continue to work in order to lay the draft statutory instruments. It is our intention to publish the targets before the end of the year.”
This comes after the department said that it was to miss the deadline for the publication of the environmental targets, which was 31 October as required by the Environment Act (see letsrecycle.com story).
The delay was then put down to the “significant public response and the volume of material” received during the public consultation.
SUEZ consults on plans for carbon capture plant
SUEZ said it has launched a pre-application consultation with local communities on plans to build a carbon capture plant next to its energy from waste (EfW) plant in Billingham.
The company said that before submitting a planning application, it will be distributing information leaflets inviting the community to complete a feedback form before the consultation closes on 11 December.
The proposed plant would help decarbonize the energy production process at the EfW facility at its existing site in Billingham, SUEZ added.
The plant would be built on a one-hectare area of disused land on the Haverton Hill site in Billingham, it continued. The company also noted that this would be part of the much bigger East Coast Cluster carbon capture and storage (CCS) project.
According to SUEZ, funding for the main East Coast Cluster pipeline for Teesside is already in place and, if approved, the main pipeline will run through its Haverton Hill site.
Stuart Hayward-Higham, technical development director for SUEZ UK said: “As part of our journey towards net zero, we have a clear focus on reducing the carbon footprint of managing our customers’ waste, of which carbon capture technology is an important part.”
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