A soft drinks manufacturer has been fined £6,000 and ordered to pay £2,101 in costs by Pontefract Magistrates Court for leaking a "purple, frothy, fruity-smelling discharge" into the Wash Dike in West Yorkshire. Cott Beverages were prosecuted by the Environment Agency after officers carrying out a routine inspection last June noticed the stream was darker than usual. The leak was followed upstream, where it was discovered emanating from the roof of a culvert at the local Cott factory. During the investigation it emerged that Cott had been dealing with another problem on site and turned off their effluent pumps, which backed up and overflowed into a surface water drain and then the stream. According to the Agency, the stream had already been subject to long-term organic pollution, and the purple leak had added to the problem.
The drinks firm admitted guilt at the first hearing, and have since made improvements to the site to prevent the incident from happening again.
