The waste management company was fined 5,000 with 746.82 costs by Hastings Magistrates yesterday (October 22), in a case brought by the Environment Agency.
Onyx pleaded guilty to charges of depositing controlled waste on land not in accordance with the waste management licence and a breach of Duty of Care at the Pebsham landfill site near Hastings.
The court heard how Agency staff were called to attend Pebsham landfill site on January 5 this year. On arrival, officers said they were shown 20 clinical waste sharps bins and three yellow plastic sacks marked, “clinical waste – incineration only”. The load had been delivered to the site on January 4.
The Agency said that a letter was sent to Onyx requesting a formal interview in relation to the incident, but the company declined saying that the delivery had been done by a temporary member of staff with insufficient training. Subsequent letters from the Agency were met by a response from the company’s solicitor which said that Onyx had acknowledged its responsibility but saw no need to attend a formal interview.
In mitigation, Onyx said that it had pleaded guilty at the first possible opportunity and had conducted an internal investigation as a result of the incident. The company said that there had been no environmental damage and that the waste had subsequently been removed and incinerated. Onyx told the court that additional members of staff had since been trained and that this was an unfortunate incident that would not happen again.
Hastings Magistrates told the company while they had taken into account the lack of environmental impact, the event was caused by carelessness and that Onyx knew the potential hazards of the materials and that potential for environmental harm.
Agency solicitor Dan Wiley said: “There are strict rules concerning the disposal of clinical waste and companies who are licensed to carry it have a duty to take proper responsibility for it. The presence of this material at Pebsham was considered to be a potential hazard to site operatives and although there was no environmental impact on this occasion, the risk was clearly there.”
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