The owner of a Wiltshire scrapyard and recycling company has received an 18-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, for running an illegal waste operation from a site in Melksham.

Lee Hazel, owner and director of Melksham Metals Recycling Ltd, was sentenced last week (18 February) at Swindon Crown Court following two earlier court hearings in June 2014 and November 2015.

On 23 August 2011, an enforcement officer from Wiltshire Council visited the Lowbourne area of Melksham to investigate a report of illegal waste tipping. He found piles of chalky stone, tarmac road planings and concrete pipes at Queenfield Farm beside the Wiltshire to Berkshire Canal.

The officer reported to the Environment Agency (EA) that there was a trail of ‘chalky liquid’ in the road at the entrance to Queenfield Farm of a similar colour to the waste stone seen tipped there. The trail led back to Melksham Metal Recycling.

On 6 September 2011, EA officers visited the same farm where they saw a Melksham Metals lorry loaded with stone waste drive onto the site. Following the visit, the EA wrote to Hazel asking him to provide copies of waste transfer notes for the previous two years.

Hazel claimed that the lorry seen on 6 September had taken stone waste to a permitted site near Chippenham, contradictory to what the driver had told EA officers. He also claimed that he had never tipped waste at the farm.

Further inquiries revealed that between November 2004 and May 2012 Melksham Metals had a £178,000 contract to remove waste stone from a local stonemason’s yard for disposal at licensed site. The waste from the stonemason was identical to the tipped stone at the farm, according to one of the EA officers.

Hazel ‘continued to operate outside of the law’

The EA said that Hazel had been warned ‘on several occasions’ about unlawful waste activities including the illegal disposal of waste, and depositing waste on land without an environment permit and the requirements of duty of care.

In June 2014, Hazel was found guilty of four changes in relation to the dumping of waste on land at Queenfield farm. In November 2015, Hazel pleaded guilty to a further five charges in relation to unauthorised waste activities at his Station Yard premises.

Malksham Metals Recycling Ltd was also convicted of similar offences but will not be sentenced until after a confiscation hearing in June 2016, which will also decide the confiscation order in relation to the financial benefit obtained by Hazel.

Hazel had been involved in the waste industry for 20 years and held a Certificate of Technical Competence (CoTC) by the Waste Management Industry Training and Advisory Board (WAMITAB). Fines and costs against Hazel and his company will be decided at the hearing in June 2016.

An EA spokesman said: “It is important that waste materials are stored, handled and disposed of correctly to protect the environment and safeguard human health.

“The defendant in this case continued to operate outside the law despite being put on notice that what he was doing was illegal and ran the risk of prosecution.”

EA working on illegal waste sites

Part of the EA’s remit includes tackling illegal waste sites, although a corporate scorecard for the second quarter of the 2015/16 financial year showed that the regulator was significantly missing targets to clamp down on high-risk illegal operations.

From a baseline of 272 in 2013/14, the EA had set a target of reducing the number of high-risk illegal waste sites in England by 24 per cent to 206 sites by the fourth quarter of this year. However, the number has actually risen to 323, an increase of 19 per cent.

The Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM) is also aiming to help reduce the occurrence of waste infractions through its ‘Fighting waste crime’ campaign, which will run throughout 2016.

The campaign aims to help businesses ensure that they are complying with waste regulations and avoiding illegal operators and will focus on training and qualifications such as duty of care and technical competence.

More about how the EA tackles waste crime can be found in Resource’s feature article.