Heysham firm fined £5,000 for illegally storing waste

Carbon Grid Ltd, along with Steven Dyer, the company’s owner and director, were convicted of ‘illegal operating a regulated facility’, namely the storage and treatment of waste tyres without an environmental permit on July 15 2017 at Lancaster Magistrates’ Court.

As part of this sentence, the company was ordered to clear the site of all waste stored at Heysham Business Park, Middleton Road, by August 31 2017.

In addition to the order the company was fined £8,090 and ordered to pay £4,200 costs. Mr Dyer was given a 26 week sentence suspended for 12 months. He was also disqualified from acting as company director for three years.

Mr Dyer, who has two previous convictions for similar offences, ran Carbon Grid Ltd between July 7 2015 and December 9 2015.

In this time Environment Agency Officers visited the site and observed approximately 250 waste tyres stored in the front of the site building. The waste tyres were not stored securely and members of the public could gain access to the waste.

On entering the site Officers also observed two large piles of shredded tyre crumb, each pile exceeding 10 tonnes. It was estimated that over 100 tonnes of waste tyres was being stored on the site at the time, in excess of the 40 tonne limit.

Officers returned to the site on August 17 2015 with colleagues from the Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service and noted large gaps in the fencing.

The quantity of waste stored on site, or the manner in which it was stored had not changed, with 300 waste tyres being stored without security measures, while 1,500-2,000 whole waste tyres were being stored together. The shredded waste tyres remained the same.

After the order was made Environment Agency Officers attended the site on September 1 2017 and January 25 2018 and observed some of the waste had not been removed. The company failed to clear the waste as directed and so the order was breached.

The company explained to the court that vehicular access to the site had been blocked and that it was unable to comply with the order fully.

John Neville from Environment Agency said: “Environment Agency Officers work had to tackle illegal operations that negatively impact legitimate businesses and often blight local communities.

“Sites accepting waste for storage, treatment and/or disposal are considered regulated facilities and need an environmental permit to protect people and the environment.

“Good management and good infrastructure should be in place before an operation starts to avoid impacts on local communities from such things as litter, noise, dust and odour. In more serious cases waste can contain harmful substances too.

“Illegal activities such as this also pose a significant risk should a fire occur – the quantity of waste stored on site would be difficult to control and cause a great deal of harm to air quality, while contaminated fire water run off always has the potential to cause pollution to surface water.

“Waste Crime is a serious offence and we urge anyone to report illegal activities such as this to our incident hotline on 0800 80 70 60 or anonymously via Crimestoppers online or on 0800 555 111.