A man from Lincolnshire has been given a suspended prison sentence and his van and funds confiscated, for storing and burning waste illegally at a site in Holbeach, despite repeated warnings from the Environment Agency.
The man was found to have burned a variety of waste at his property without an environmental permit or registered waste exemption. He was also found to be storing more than 600 fridges at the site.
His eight month sentence was suspended for two years on the condition he completes 250 hours of unpaid work and complies with a three month, 7pm to 7am curfew. His available assets of £8,317 were ordered to be confiscated after it was calculated he benefited from his illegal waste activities by £144,000. No order was made for costs because of the mans limited means.
The man was a registered waste carrier and told Environment Agency officers that he had operated a waste business at the site for a number of years. He collected waste from house clearances and was paid by an electrical store to take away waste fridges. He burned some of the waste and stored the rest at his property.
Officers visited the site on six occasions from April 2018, and told the man verbally and in writing to stop bringing waste to the site and burning it. They told him to take the waste to an authorised waste site for recycling or disposal, and issued him with statutory notices. Nevertheless when they returned to the site they found that more waste had been brought to the site and burned.
Rubbish at the site included:
Some of the rubbish had been burned, causing neighbours to make complaints about the smoke. Fridges are classed as hazardous waste and need specialist disposal.
Judge John Pini QC told the man: "You started running this waste disposal business. You went into it with staggering naivety. It's pretty obvious to absolutely anybody that you can't dispose of this waste by burning it, putting toxic fumes into the environment. I fail to understand why you did not grasp that".
Helen Clayton from the Environment Agency's Waste North Team, said: "Storing and burning waste in this way saved the cost of legal disposal and put the environment at real risk. This result should serve as a warning for others that we take illegal waste activity extremely seriously and we will take enforcement action against those who flout the law".
