Fined for burning trade waste

The owner of a Somerset garden centre has been ordered to pay more than £15,700 in fines and costs for illegally burning trade waste.
The case was brought by the Environment Agency. On 14 January 2010 two Environment Agency officers visited the Rocky Mountain Garden Centre in Masbury to investigate a report of illegal waste burning. They found no evidence of burning, but noticed there were very few waste collection facilities on site.
Following their visit the officers wrote to the owner, Terence Bailey, asking him to provide the Environment Agency with all the waste transfer notes for all waste removed from the garden centre for the preceding two years. This was to establish whether waste had been collected and disposed of correctly.
Mr Bailey replied saying that as a small business with an annual turnover of approximately £550,000 and producing around six tonnes of waste a year, he didn’t think he needed to keep waste transfer notes. He told the Agency he would “be clearing a lot off the site very shortly”.
It was pointed out to Mr Bailey that the Rocky Mountain Garden Centre was located in an extremely sensitive area for groundwater and any pollutants entering the ground could contaminate public water supplies.
On 27 January 2010 Agency officers returned to the site and inspected land opposite the garden centre, also owned by the defendant. They found a large pile of burnt waste covering an area of ground approximately 8m by 2.5m and some 2m high. Nearby was a pile of unburnt waste and three scrap vehicles. However, when officers returned a month later with officers from Mendip District Council they saw the pile of burnt waste had increased in size. The ash contained electrical appliances, burnt batteries, mouse poison, holly wreaths, a shop display unit, barbeque tools, garden tools plus some household waste and paperwork from the garden centre. Also visible were piles of scrap metal, plant pots and scrap cars including some buried in undergrowth.
Rebecca Bomers for the Environment Agency said:
“The illegal burning of commercial waste on this site posed a serious risk of contamination to soils and groundwater. The defendant continued to dispose of waste by burning despite being warned, on a number of occasions, that his actions were unlawful. The offences were deliberate and took place over a prolonged period of time. The defendant denied he was motivated by financial gain, although he would have saved a considerable amount of money in waste disposal costs.”
Appearing before Frome magistrates, Terence Bailey was fined a total of £12,000 and ordered to pay £3,713 costs after pleading guilty to four offences under the Environmental Protection Regulations 2007 and one under the Environmental Protection Act 1991 including depositing and disposing of waste at Rocky Mountain Nursery without a permit and transferring waste without waste transfer notes.