Wood recycler fined for storage permit breach

The company pleaded guilty to 14 charges under regulation 38 of the Environmental Permitting Regulations 2010 at Bromley Crown Court on Wednesday (July 24), and was also ordered to pay costs of 9,773 as well as a Victim Surcharge of 15.

The Environment Agency brought charges against Metropolitan Waste Management, following the service of Enforcement Notices in April and July 2012 related to the volume of waste stored at the site.

Metropolitan Waste Management processes wood and general waste for disposal via energy from waste (EfW) facilities. Permit conditions were in place to ensure that local amenities are not affected by the waste operation from dust, noise or odour – including a maximum storage height of 3 metres and a maximum storage volume of 1500m3.

The court heard that a visit by Agency officers on 13 April 2012 discovered the volume of waste to be much higher than permitted. Consequently, an enforcement notice was served on April 16 requiring the site to comply with the permit conditions by the following month.

Reductions

Subsequent visits revealed minimal reductions had taken place, and when the notice expired the volume of waste on site was found to be over ten times the permitted level.

The Agency worked with Metropolitan Waste Management to reduce the amount of waste on site and said that reductions had been seen by June 2012, but then increased significantly by July, reaching over twenty times the permitted volume. A further enforcement notice was issued on 26 July 2012, with a new deadline of 21 August 2012.

A visit on that date found the company were still in breach of the enforcement notice and their Environmental Permit. Volumes of waste were calculated to be approximately 32,556 m, over 21 times the permitted volume, and were stored at heights of 7 metres, over double the permitted height.

The court acknowledged that improvements have now been made on site, but found that the breaches were flagrant, significant and financially motivated.

Chris Hazelton, the Agencys environment manager, said: Metropolitan Waste Management chose to ignore its management procedures and environmental permit, and no had inclination to follow any advice and guidance provided by Environment Agency officers.

Illegal operations like this can not only damage the environment and blight communities, but can have a serious impact on those local businesses that operate within the rules. In cases like this where individuals consistently operate illegally, we prosecute them as we want to make sure that waste crime doesnt pay.

Following the prosecution, a spokesman for the company said: Following a complete internal review, the MWM site is now compliant with the waste permit. We will continue to work on a day-to-day operational basis to ensure that it remains so. We appreciate the EA’s on-going support for our business and will endeavour to maintain a closer relationship with them going forward.