Rita Penman - 11-Jun-2007
- Waste tyre recycling company Murfitt Industries
Ltd has been fined a total of £5,000
and ordered to pay £2,718 costs by
Mildenhall Magistrates’ Court today (Mon)
after being caught storing shredded tyres
at an illegal site and failing to remove
them when told to.
The tyres were stored on land formerly
known as Home Grown Chicory Ltd at Station
Road, Lakenheath which was not suitable
because it had no systems to protect against
the risk of fires or contamination of surface
water.
Within 250 metres of the site is the Little
Ouse River which has breeding populations
of coarse fish, a fishery upstream and an
area used for water abstractions for agriculture.
The site is also only 100 metres from homes
and from the RSPB nature reserve at Lakenheath
Fen which supports many breeds of bird.
If there had been a fire at the site, the
impact on the environment and on the local
residents could have been substantial.
The company, based in Littleport, Ely,
has had a licence from the Environment Agency
since May 2002 to operate a waste tyre recycling
facility at its Littleport site but there
was no licence to use the site at Lakenheath
which was where an Environment Agency officer
discovered 1,800 tonnes of the material.
Having discovered the piles of shredded
tyres in March 2006 and established who
owned the site, the officer, John Harrison,
wrote to Mark Murfitt saying that the deposit
and storage of the material there was an
offence and that he should not deposit any
more, should remove what was there already
and in the meantime should take steps to
reduce the risk of fire and water pollution.
Murfitt failed to reply to the letter and
instead applied for consideration to be
given to the storage of 10,000 tonnes of
shredded tyres to be classed as a low risk
waste activity, which would therefore have
meant the site would not require a license
or the waste to be removed. The officer
waited before taking any more action until
the application had been assessed and determined.
But on 13 July the officer was told that
the application had been refused so he served
an enforcement notice under section 59 of
the Environmental Protection Act 11000 requiring
the shredded tyres to be removed within
90 days - by the 5 October.
A day later he received a letter from the
defendant saying he was unable to remove
the tyres until the end of the month but
did not explain why.
On 17 October nearly two-thirds of the
waste was still on the site and it was still
there three weeks later.
After the hearing Environment Officer John
Harrison said: ‘I was disappointed to find
that Murfitts Industries, an operator with
considerable experience in dealing with
waste tyre materials, did not consider or
chose to ignore, the potential environmental
impacts and legality of depositing and storing
this large quantity of shredded tyres on
an unlicensed site.
‘Operators who intend to deposit or store
controlled waste material should always
contact the Environment Agency for advice
prior to carrying out the activity.’
Murfitts pleaded guilty to:
On or around 24 March 2006 you did keep
controlled waste, namely shredded tyre material,
onto land formerly known as Home Grown Chicory
Ltd at Station Road, Lakenheath, Suffolk,
which does not benefit from a waste management
licence.
Contrary to s33(1)(b) and s33(6) Environmental
Protection Act 11000. Fined £4,000.
You failed, without reasonable excuse,
by the 6th October 2006, to comply with
the requirement in a Notice dated 14th July
2006, pursuant to Section 59(1)(a) of the
Environmental Protection Act 11000, to remove
controlled waste from land occupied by you
at the date of service of the said notice,
known as Home Grown Chicory Ltd at Station
Road, Lakenheath, Suffolk.
Contrary to s59(5) of the Environment Protection
Act 11000. Fined £1,000.
