A married couple that runs Daniels Recycling, a waste site in Warrington, has been ordered to pay £130,000 for illegally exporting 187 tonnes of hazardous electronic waste to Africa.

The prosecution against Lynn Gallop, 52, and Mark Daniels, 51, both of Warrington, was brought to Warrington Crown Court by the Environment Agency (EA) after officers found 11 shipping containers full of electrical waste destined for Nigeria, Ghana and Tanzania.

While working electronics can be exported for resale, it is illegal to send hazardous electronic waste from the UK to developing countries, and the EA says that illegally exported waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) often ends up dumped near homes and rivers where it is melted down to extract precious metals. This process can cause toxic pollution and serious risk to human health.

Panorama investigation provides key evidence

Evidence from BBC’s Panorama programme was used in the EA’s prosecution. A 2011 episode of the investigative series, titled ‘Track My Trash’, followed a broken television thrown away at a London council site to see how it would end up at a toxic dump in West Africa.

Producers fitted a hidden tracking device to the television and left it at a household waste recycling centre in south London. The TV was tracked to Daniels Recycling in Warrington, and then to Felixstowe port. Officers seized the TV from a shipping container before it was illegally exported.

The TV was being transported along with other WEEE in one of 11 40-foot containers, each with around 15 tonnes of electronic waste inside. Wrapped products were put at the front of the containers to make it seem that they were full of working goods, though further back the containers included hazardous cathode ray televisions and broken fridge freezers.

Further illegal export

Daniels Recycling, based in Slutchers Lane, Warrington, had already been served with an enforcement notice by the EA. In addition to the 11 shipping containers that were seized as part of the Panorama investigation, EA prosecutors told the court that the company had illegally exported another 186 shipping containers to Nigeria, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Tanzania, Gambia and Togo between 2011 and 2015.

Appearing at court on Friday 20 November, the company and directors Daniels and Gallop pleaded guilty to shipping the containers illegally. Daniels was given a nine-month custodial sentence, suspended for two years, and made to pay £50,000 under the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) and £20,000 in costs. Gallop was fined £450, with a £25,000 POCA payment and costs of £10,000.

Daniels Recycling Ltd itself was fined a total of £25,000, £5,000 for every offence admitted.

Ezenwa Ogbonnaya and Liverpool-based company M2 Ventures Ltd also pleaded guilty to exporting six of the containers, having bought waste from Daniels Recycling. Sentencing for Ogbonnaya and the company, of which he is Managing Director, has been adjourned until March 2016.

Rules protect human life and the environment

Following the sentencing, Andrew Higham, who leads the Environment Agency’s National Environmental Crime Team, said: “The rules governing the exportation of waste electrical equipment are in place for good reason – to protect human life and the environment.

“It is illegal to send hazardous waste to developing countries. All organisations handling waste have a responsibility to check they know where their waste is going so it doesn’t end up causing harm to people or the environment.”

Learn more about the hazards of WEEE dismantling in Resource’s in-depth article, featuring Kevin McElvaney’s powerful photo series.