A clean-up operation has seen 336 tonnes of illegally dumped mattresses from a site in the Vale of Glamorgan.

The removal was overseen by Welsh environmental regulator Natural Resources Wales (NRW) following the successful prosecution in 2017 of Victor Keseru and Nathan Thomas, who made £37,000 under their mattress recycling and disposal company Envik Recycling Services by removing and selling the metal from the mattresses before dumping the rest at the site in Llandow.

In October 2017, Cardiff Crown Court handed both defendants six-month prison sentences suspended for two years, ordered them to pay a Court Compensation Order of £26,000 plus £6,500 costs each and ordered each to do 225 hours unpaid work.

This compensation order totalling £52,080 recouped from the defendants will pay for the removal and disposal of the waste at an authorised facility by a qualified contractor engaged by NRW.

Commenting on the removal, Su Fernandez, Senior Environmental Crime Officer for NRW, said: “Mr Keseru and Mr Thomas operated a mattress recycling and disposal company called Envik Recycling Services and were responsible for importing and depositing waste baled mattresses.

“Waste mattresses had been tipped outside in the open and had also been used to fill up an on-site warehouse from floor to ceiling high. Customers had paid Envik for the disposal/recycling of waste mattresses, and so they had benefited financially from this illegal activity.”

“The waste posed a risk to people and the environment and the cost of its removal would have weighed heavily on the public purse if the compensation order had not been made. We will continue to clamp down on the illegal waste trade to protect our natural resources and our communities, and to ensure a level playing field for businesses who operate within the law.”