The Environment Agency has successfully prosecuted a former company director for illegally exporting banned household waste from a site in Worcestershire to Indonesia in 2019.
The illegally exported waste included:
At Kidderminster Magistrates Court in August 2022, the ex-director was fined £1,200 and ordered to pay costs of £10,000 after pleading guilty in April 2022 to causing his dissolved company, Berry Polymer Limited, to export the waste to Indonesia.
Shipping documents described the waste as plastic, which can be exported to Indonesia for recycling.
Howard McCann, prosecuting for the Environment Agency, told the court that between 27 June and 5 July 2019, the ex-director had caused his company to export 382 tonnes of household waste in 22 sea containers from the Worcestershire site via the ports of Felixstowe and Southampton to Indonesia.
The waste included approximately 1,590 nappies or sanitary items, 1,338 electrical items and 33,639 tins/cans.
McCann told the court that the defendant was the sole director of Berry Polymer Limited, a company which was dissolved on 24 August 2021, at the time of the offending.
The ex-director agreed to sell around 500 tonnes of plastic bottle waste to a broker at £270 per tonne, and invoiced the broker £103,210.20 for 382.26 tonnes of "plastic bottles".
The offence was discovered by Environment Agency officers who conducted initial inspections of some of the 22 containers at the ports of Southampton and Felixstowe in July 2019. The inspections recorded significant evidence of contamination, flies, and in some containers, a rotting decomposing smell.
The containers were deemed unfit for export at that stage and prevented from onward shipment to Indonesia. Five of the containers were transported to the Environment Agency's inspection facility at Felixstowe for a full examination, where one of the bales examined was so bad that an officer was physically sick.
The containers were returned for reprocessing and when interviewed, the ex-director said the material supplied was not as described because his company's usual bale inspection had either not happened or was sub-standard. District Judge Strongman said this was a "blunder" by the ex-director, which cost him his business and reputation.
Sham Singh, senior investigating officer for the Environment Agency, said: "This prosecution sends out a strong message that we will investigate and where necessary prosecute anyone found to be involved in illegally exporting waste".
"Waste crime can have a serious environmental impact and puts communities at risk. It undermines legitimate business and the investment and economic growth that goes with it".
"We support legitimate businesses and are proactively supporting them by disrupting and stopping the illegal waste exports".
