Skip Hire Cheat Banged To Rights #1
The owner of a Reading skip hire business that took waste without the proper licences has been electronically tagged and put under curfew, given a six month suspended sentence and ordered to pay costs of £6,000.
His son, also involved in the business, was given a 200 hour community service order.
Leslie Tucker Dunn Snr and Leslie Thomas Dunn Jnr of Arborfield Cross, Reading pleaded guilty on the 11 January 2010 at Oxford Crown Court to depositing controlled waste without a Waste Management Licence.
The Dunns ran a series of businesses from the site including a skip hire business called – “Talking Rubbish” – and received waste ranging from wood, plastics, cardboard, rubber, polystyrene and soil between January and July 2008.
Environment Agency officers regularly attended the site and saw waste being handled on many occasions but, despite the repeated requests to stop the unlawful activity, the Dunns continued on.
To legitimately bring such waste onto the site and deal with it, the owners needed planning permission and a relevant waste management licence or environmental permit.
The judge told the defendants that the offences must be viewed against a “backdrop of sustained enforcement action by the Environment Agency”, and congratulated the efforts of the Environment Agency in its sustained investigation despite efforts by the defendants to derail it.
The court heard how Dunn Snr wrote to the Environment Agency in a statement claiming that he no longer ran the business at the site due to ill-health and it was his sons who ran the business. At court it was submitted on his behalf that he advised the business and also assisted when required. He was caught on CCTV driving a lorry to a landfill run by another company.
The court was also told that in December 2007 Mr Dunn senior was fined £30,000 and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £6,000 after pleading guilty on a previous date at Reading Magistrates’ Court to six offences of breaching the conditions of his scrap metal waste management licence and also bringing non scrap metal waste onto the site without a waste management licence.
Environment officer Gill May said: “The company ignored repeated warnings to stop the handling and treatment of non scrap metal waste without a waste management licence or later an Environmental Permit.
“A waste management licence or an Environmental Permit would impose controls designed to protect the environment and those living in the local area. Companies operating illegally and who also avoid the costs of measures to protect the environment gain a commercial advantage over those companies operating legally.”
“We are pleased the court has deemed this a serious case by handing out a suspended sentence and a community service order.
“Waste company operators must ensure that they comply with the regulations and operate within the conditions of their permits so that they are not harming the environment or breaking the law.”
February 26, 2010 at 8:48 am | Uncategorized | No comment
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Live dangerously – do something low risk!
Every week I hear one politician or another bleating about the government making too much red tape and have come to the inevitable conclusion that it is part of the script. Are they really bothered? No red tape = no politicians and civil servants, meaning that they would all have to find another job and expenses. Every year we have over 3,000 statutory instruments (regulations and orders) produced, regardless of the persuasion of the government, by the bureaucratic machine. I know it keeps me busy but sometimes we all want life to be simple. Working in the complex world of waste legislation can be infuriating and I never cease to be amazed at how simple matters can be over complicated.
One such example is my old friend “Low Risk Regulation” which causes some waste activities to fall outside the legislative trap and catches others that should never even be considered – so I love it and hate it in equal measure. I covered the list of low risk exemptions some time ago and since then several of my colleagues at Oaktree have been instrumental in getting new activities added to the list so I though it would be worth having another look to see what you can do for free!
To recap, the Environment Agency has produced a list of low risk exempt activities because they believe that it would be disproportionate to require them to be permitted or enforce against them, which is fair enough and licensing everything would clog up the permitting teams, resulting in even bigger delays. The list is by no means a sensible one as there are many activities on the list which should simply not be on the EA’s radar, such as LRW043 “The secure storage of waste coathangers or their constituent parts destined for recovery. The sorting and segregation of waste coathangers into their constituent parts.”
The problem stems from the fact that even though we produce so many sets of regulations it can take an age to make amendments. When they were originally written no one thought of all the different uses waste could be put to. My personal view is that if the definition of waste was interpreted more sensibly there would be little need for many of the low risk exemptions or even some proper exemptions or permits. Instead of dreaming, here are some of my favorites:
LRW 154: Secure storage, for up to 6 months, in a freezer of 5m3 of dead pets collected from highways
LRW 008: The secure storage and manual sorting of waste footwear destined for recovery.
LRW 172: The use of clean river gravel for maintenance of existing tracks and footpaths (why is that waste?)
LRW188: The secure storage of up to 30 cubic metres of uncontaminated clay pending reuse (again – why?)
LRW 89: The secure storage of up to 30 cubic metres of uncontaminated sand pending reuse (madness).
LRW 095 The secure storage, sorting and repair of non-mechanical garden tools. (hoe, hoe)
LRW181 Secure storage of waste wine bottle corks in a 40 yd bin pending recovery.
Here are some useful ones though:
LRW0111: The storage of a maximum of 50m3 waste bricks to be subjected to manual cleaning destined for reuse. The manual cleaning of waste bricks destined for reuse.
LRW 042: The sorting and deconstruction of a maximum of 50m3 of waste windows and doors for the purpose of recovery.
LRW046: The secure storage and manual treatment of waste stone and timber destined for reuse.
LRW 339: Secure storage of up to 20 tonnes of waste plasterboard and gypsum wallboard for up to one month in a sealed weatherproof container pending recovery.
LRW170: The bulking up of paint residues, at a site other than where produced, prior to recovery. Maximum of two 205 litre drums at any one time to be kept securely in a building.
And some of ours:
LRW 034 The baling of waste tyres pending recovery
LRW 369: The secure storage and dismantling of end of life touring and static caravans, providing the operations are carried out within a building on an impermeable surface with sealed drainage. A maximum of 5 caravans to be stored at anyone time. A maximum of 30 caravans a year to be dismantled.
So if you think you have an activity that is low risk or weird enough to be low risk give me a call and I’ll maybe write another article that ranges from sorting coathangers to using lions’ poo as cat deterrent (they are real ones). To see the updated list follow the link below or Google ‘low risk regulation’ (unless you are in China):
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/business/topics/waste/32080.aspx
Marco Muia BSc (Hons) MSc MCIWM is the Director of Oaktree Environmental Limited. He specialises in all aspects of waste planning and regulation consultancy. He also holds the level 4 COTCs for Hazardous Waste Treatment and Transfer. You can contact Marco on 01606 558833 if you have any questions about this article or e-mail him at marco@oaktreeenvironmental.co.uk
February 25, 2010 at 8:21 am | Environmental News | No comment
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GOVERNMENT WARNING: LANDFILLS WILL BE A THING OF THE PAST
Environment Secretary Hilary Benn has publicly spoke out about the thinking behind landfill bans and reassures councils and skip hire companies alike that the definition of municipal waste changes.
We’ve all been having problems getting to grips with new changes regarding governmental reforms over waste over the past few years and it’s not about to get any easier. Local authorities and waste management companies look set to have to grapple with landfill bans being imposed for different waste streams on different dates over the years to 2020.
The Environment secretary has confirms these landfill bans will take place. Benn’s agenda is to reduce the amount of waste materials from being sent to landfill.
Ahead of a consultation on the bans – which could be issued in February 2010 – Mr Benn described them as an “encouragement” and as a form of “mutual support” for the landfill tax.
Asked whether landfill bans were Defra’s cause célèbre for waste at present and whether they were really necessary in light of the rising landfill tax, the Secretary of State said: “We are trying to make progress on a number of fronts. As I said at my ‘World Without Waste’ speech in October, why do we put all these valuable products in landfill?
“For me it is about the two things supporting each other which is why we have got to the point of landfill bans, they will mutually support each other so we can get to where we want to be. Landfill tax has had an impact, but it is about thinking ahead, being ambitious. It does not make sense to put food waste or wood or plastic or glass or aluminium cans or tin cans into landfill.”
Part of the reason behind Mr Benn’s thinking is thought to be the fact that the UK still sends 50% of household waste to landfill as well as a large percentage of commercial and industrial (C&I) waste.
By banning materials from landfill, this will encourage further recycling, said Mr Benn. “By saying you are not going to stick this into landfill any more, then we need to find another way of dealing with it which will further support the way this material is recycled and build on what we have achieved already through the efforts of local authorities, and I pay tribute to them in responding to the landfill levy.”
The Secretary of State singled out food waste as one of the key target areas for future landfill bans, arguing that it makes no sense to landfill this “for obvious reasons, both because of the methane and the fact that you have a fantastic alternative which is either composting or producing renewable energy.”
And, he suggested that all local authorities ought to be collecting food waste at least by 2020, although a precise date will be consulted on. Mr Benn remarked: “If some local authorities can collect food waste, why can’t all local authorities collect food waste?”
And, he emphasised the logic of a landfill ban in the case of food waste which will help encourage new infrastructure such as anaerobic digestion (AD). “By definition, I take you back to landfill bans; this is a policy that has a number of benefits for clearly when we get to the point that food no longer goes into landfill clearly every local authority is going to have to find another way of dealing with it.”
Mr Benn dismissed industry claims that AD developers are finding it hard to get funding for projects and said: “We have done a huge amount on AD as this is an emerging technology with enormous potential. We have doubled the incentives under ROCs from the first of April last year, Feed-in-Tariffs will come in, there is £10m for the demonstrator projects, and the EA has said digestate will not be classified as a waste and the AD task force is working with the industry. Frankly it is a technology which is waiting to take off because all the building blocks are in place.
February 24, 2010 at 8:31 am | Back Issues of "The Skip" | No comment
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Scrap Metal Industry: ‘2010 Will Be A Difficult Year’
We’ve all had a rough 12 months of it, and the scrap metal industry have found it as difficult as everyone else. But a whole twelve months after business minister Baroness Vadera famously got shot down when she announced she could see the green shoots of the economy – the British Metals Recycling Association forecasts that 2010 is going to be difficult but saw the scrap metal industry in ‘good health’.
BMRA director general Ian Hetherington told The Skip: “We anticipate 2010 will continue to be a difficult year.
“We detect that most metal recyclers have planned pretty well and they’ve cut costs according to the economic outlook. The industry is in good health and I don’t see that there will be a huge rise in business failures.
“However, they may come under stress when growth returns and the amount of working cash available is very low because of the recent low trading levels. Firms need to be able to buy more material in order to be able to grow, which puts a lot of strain on the working cash.”
Hetherington explained that it is not just the UK industry that is experiencing difficulties and that those in Europe feel the same way.
“Any weakening of the UK steel industry is bad for business. Our members are very resourceful and have found new markets for this scrap but a strong home for steel scrap is very important to the UK industry. Everyone accepts there is over capacity and somehow or other this must be dealt with but I don’t think this is the death knell to the UK industry.”
He explained that in a global market the UK struggles to be competitive against low-cost producers. This is due to a higher UK cost base, an older infrastructure, which is possibly not as efficient as a result of older plants and equipment and significant over capacity across the world.
In these times, one must think outside the box, and perhaps this is a good time fvor the scrap metal industry – and other industries – to take a look at operations and methods and review their practices. They may be able to turn the archaic into a modern, money making enterprise.
February 23, 2010 at 8:28 am | Skip Hire Industry News | No comment
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- Skip Hire Cheat Banged To Rights #1
- Live dangerously – do something low risk!
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