Recycling company fined for illegal waste storage

A South Yorkshire recycling services firm has been fined £20,000 after and Environment Agency (EA) investigation found that they had been illegally storing industrial waste, including oil and asbestos.

Grove Environmental Ltd, which operates from Whitelea Grove Trading Estate, Mexborough, had pleaded guilty to the three charges concerning the illegal operation of a waste site. Doncaster District Judge, Jonathan Bennett, this week ordered the company to pay a £20,000 fine, as well as £11,000 in court costs to the EA, on top of a £5,000 voluntary payment the company had already made.

Judge Bennett said that the company had cut corners in order to keep lucrative contracts and, in doing so, created an unfair market.

EA inspectors had first visited the site in August 2008, and found waste where it was not meant to be stored and other kinds of waste that were not meant to be there at all, as a matter of public safety.

The EA's Barry Berlin said that the storage of chrysotile white asbestos fibres and crushed cement-bonded asbestos not only put employees at risk, but also the environment officers who inspected it.

The EA officer in charge of the investigation, Lindsey Jones, said: "I'm delighted that the court has recognised the seriousness of these offences and has imposed a fine which recognises the risk not only to employees, but to people who do business with the site."