The Inner London Crown Court has imposed a record fine of £75,000 on a rendering company for various breaches of its environmental permit, after being prosecuted by the local authority responsible for regulating its activities under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations SI 2010/675.
One of the key failures of Newham LBC related to the treatment and control of odorous emissions from their rendering plant, leading to several complaints from the local community. The case highlights the difficulties associated in dealing with highly technical issues concerning industrial plant operation in the context of a criminal prosecution. Independent consultants appointed by the local authority found that the plant's abatement system, which was recognised as being a best available technique (BAT), used the boiler to incinerate the most concentrated emissions from the plant. Therefore odours resulted when the boilers were not in use, or were run minimally.
This shows the conflicting considerations when determining BAT requirements for industrial plants, and emphasises that implementing BAT will not necessarily protect an operator against a failure to secure the environmental conditions specified in their environmental permit.
The fine is understood to be the largest awarded for an odour-related offence, as well as the largest to be recovered by a local authority for an environmental offence. This continues a trend of increasingly significant fines currently being imposed for environmental offences.
