A Suffolk-based composting firm has been ordered to pay over 33,000 in fines and costs after pleading guilty to an offence relating to odours at its operation at Stanton, near Bury St Edmunds.
County Mulch, which is based in Ipswich, was prosecuted by the Environment Agency on the basis that it had allowed smells off site between August 2009 and February 2010 and, as a result, had breached its environmental permit.
At a hearing last week, Bury St Edmunds Magistrates Court heard that, during 2009, the Agency received 206 odour complaints about the composting site, at Shepherds Grove Industrial Estate, compared to 21 in 2007 and five in 2008. In 2010, there were 50 complaints between January 1 and February 4.
The Agency said some witnesses claimed the smells had driven them indoors and forced them to shut their windows.
Mrs Anne-Lise McDonald, prosecuting for the Agency, said County Mulch had failed to properly investigate the smells and to manage the site infrastructure to control them.
The site continued to take waste when it was having difficulties processing the amount of waste on site and the offence went on for several months, she told the court, adding that smells off site were detected up to two miles away.
She also said Agency officers had frequently found composting liquor and sludge stagnating on the floor of buildings at the site and in the yard.
The company commissioned an odour review, on the advice of the agency, which identified a number of sources of emissions from its operations and equipment. These included ineffective biofilters, poor fan sequencing, no air extraction or abatement in the shredding and screening areas and no odour abatement on the leachate collection tank and lagoon.
Mrs McDonald told the court that, after the review was carried out, there were still smells coming from the composting site for another few months. She said that, in February 2010, the site was fairly dirty and there were a number of odours, with odorous steam venting from the biofilter, steam rising from many locations. She also said the concrete area in the reception building was in poor condition, resulting in effluent ponding in some areas around the waste which added to the smells.
Offence
County Mulch pleaded guilty to failing to comply with condition 5.2.2 of its environmental permit between August 10 2009 and February 5 2010.
This related to emissions to air from its waste management operation not being free from odours at levels likely to cause pollution of the environment or harm to human health or serious detriment to the amenity of the locality outside the site boundary, as perceived by an authorised officer of the Agency.
As a result, last week (May 26), the company was fined 20,000 and ordered to pay full costs of 13,873. In determining its sentence, the court took into account the aggravating mitigating factors and also the liquidity of the company
County Mulch
In a statement issued following the court judgement, County Mulch said: It is accepted by all concerned that composting, which is a natural process, produces odours. It is not the production of odours which counts but rather the degree of odour produced.
It is to be noted that at law this offence was based on an old style Environment Agency licence condition which is based entirely on the subjective perception of odours by Environment Agency officers. There is otherwise no objective measurement of such odours. There were no findings of fault or negligence on the part of Country Mulch.
Describing itself as an essential and very sustainable business, County Mulch said it had made a significant investment in both infrastructure and odour management at the Stanton site over the past two years, at a cost of several hundred thousand pounds.
It added: The company has undergone a fundamental change in structure, ownership and management during the past 12 months.
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