Welsh waste company Siteserv Recycling has said it will appeal a £40,000 fine issued by a court yesterday (July 01) relating to a 2017 fire.
The company pleaded guilty at Cardiff Magistrates’ Court on two counts of breaching its environmental permit between 2016 and 2017. Alongside the penalty issued by the court, the company was ordered to pay £3,122 in costs and a £170 victim surcharge.
However, in a statement issued in the wake of the sentencing, the company said penalty “bears no resemblance to the offence committed” and signalled its intention to appeal.
The 2017 fire burned for around two weeks (Picture: NRW)
In bringing the case to court, Natural Resources Wales (NRW) had said that Siteserv had failed to follow its own fire prevention plan at a waste storage facility in Llandow in the Vale of Glamorgan, where a fire occurred in March 2017.
NRW said that if the company had followed the plan “the fire could have been contained to a much smaller area”.
Fire
In its investigation, the Fire and Rescue Service concluded that the fire was caused by accidental ignition by the self-heating of the wastes.
Natural Resources Wales (NRW) said that it had granted the site an Environmental Permit in 2015 including a condition that “required the operator to produce a Fire Prevention Plan detailing how the business will be managed to reduce fire risk.”
NRW added that after a plan was produced and approved, subsequent visits in the build up to the fire “highlighted a steady increase in waste being stored without fire breaks, and that waste was being stored for longer than permitted.”
Following each visit, according to NRW, a Compliance Assessment Review (CAR) form was produced and submitted to the company, requiring it to take action.
However, NRW said that “deadlines dates were not met, and no action was taken on the site to address the concerns”.
‘Disappointed’
In response, Siteserv issued a statement saying it is “extremely disappointed” with the outcome of the case.
Waste at the south Wales site (picture: NRW)
A spokesperson for the company said: “We are extremely disappointed with today’s court ruling and subsequent fine. The fine bears no resemblance to the offence committed and the company will therefore be appealing the ruling.”
In clarifying events, the company said that it had RDF stored on site, to be sent for incineration, which was “below the maximum tonnage allowance set by NRW”. Siteserv added that it was working with the regulator to ensure its draft Fire Prevention Plan was “in accordance with their necessarily strict regulations.”
The company also claimed that “NRW’s case relates solely to the pre-existing DRAFT Fire Prevention Plan.”
In this plan, Siteserv said it had internally stated that it would reduce stockpiles over a 12-month period. “However, due to the lack of incineration plants in the locality willing to accept material we were unable to meet our ambitious waste disposal targets,” the company claimed.
The statement finished by saying that while Siteserv acknowledged that the waste stockpiled for incineration “may well have been detrimental to the speed with which the fire took hold of the hangar”, it denied this was the cause of the fire.
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Source: letsrecycle.com Waste Managment
