3C Waste Limited, a subsidiary of WRG, was fined by Warrington Magistrates’ Court after pleading guilty to three breaches of its licence. The offences related to the management of landfill gas, leachate and the escape of wind-blown litter at the Arpley landfill site between October 2000 and March 2001. WRG was fined 17,000 and ordered to pay 6,500 costs to the Environment Agency who brought the prosecution.
Damien Healey, prosecuting for the Environment Agency told the court how during a routine site inspection on
October 5 2000, Stephen Rosser, an environment protection officer for the Agency, detected landfill gas smells. Returning to the site four days later, Mr Rosser saw that landfill gas was escaping from a number of chambers and detected landfill gas on a number of further visits between October 18 and December 1 2000.
The court was also told that on December 12, Mr Rosser noticed that leachate had run on to the bank of the River Mersey. Mr Rosser brought this to the attention of the site manager, who took immediate steps to stop the flow.
On March 19 2001, 3C Waste again breached its licence when it failed to maintain effective measures to prevent waste material being blown away. A member of the public complained to the Agency that large amounts of waste had been blowing off site. Mr Rosser visited the site on the next day and noted bin wagons were depositing light, domestic waste, and large amounts of litter were blowing off the tip. So much litter had been blown into the litter nets that they were completely full, and litter was blowing over them on to the adjacent fields and into the Mersey.
Treatment plant
In a separate case, in February 2001, the Environment Agency served an enforcement notice on WRG, in relation to the management of leachates at the Arpley site following a number of breaches of its licence. WRG has now spent 2.8million on improving the management of leachate which includes the construction of a new treatment plant.
Steve Jennings, managing director of the North Western Division of the Waste Recycling Group, said: “The company is very sorry that these breaches of our site licence have occurred and we are taking the prosecutions very seriously. The offences were as a result of historic site management practices prior to the acquisition of 3C Waste Ltd by Waste Recycling early in 1999, and a substantial programme of corrective actions and works were begun to address the problems.
“A total of around 9.5million has now been spent on improving the control of landfill gas including collection and pipe work systems at Arpley, 2.8million on leachate control including the construction of a state of the art on-site treatment plant, and 2.7million on the treatment and disposal of leachate. These measures have made a huge improvement in the overall operation of Arpley since last summer, and this has been acknowledged by the Environment Agency. Work on these improvements was in progress at the time of the offences.”
Speaking after the hearing, Mr Rosser said: “We expect conditions to be complied with at all times and we will continue to monitor the site to ensure recent progress is maintained.”
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