27-Apr-2006 - A Rotherham
company was fined £100,000 today (Thursday)
after it ignored several warnings from the Environment
Agency about illegally dismantling refrigeration
units in a way likely to jeopardise the environment
or human health.
Van Dalen UK Limited of Arnold
House, Blackburn Road, Rotherham, pleaded guilty
at Chesterfield Magistrate’s Court to five charges
of dismantling refrigeration units at its Newbridge
Lane site in Chesterfield, in a manner likely
to cause harm to the environment or human health.
The charges related to 9, 13,
22, and 30 July and 29 September 2004, and were
all were breaches of sections 33(1)(c) and 33(6)
of the Environmental Protection Act 11000.
The company was fined the maximum
£20,000 per offence and ordered to pay full
costs of £4,151.93 to the Environment Agency,
which brought the case.
Trevor Cooper, prosecuting for
the government’s environmental regulator, told
the court that in June 2003 Van Dalen had been
granted a waste management licence for its Chesterfield
site. However, the company had been given specific
instructions that it could not start to dismantle
fridges or freezers until an appropriate way of
working had been agreed with the Environment Agency.
Fridges and other refrigeration
units contain CFCs in their coolant systems and
insulation. These are ozone-depleting substances
and considered dangerous to the environment. Since
1 January 2002, all refrigeration equipment has
to have these dangerous substances removed before
it can be disposed of.
Van Dalen was asked to carry
out a trial to ensure that its method of removing
the dangerous substances was safe and did what
it was intended to. When this trial was carried
out it was discovered that not enough CFCs were
being removed from the insulation in the units,
so Environment Agency officers wouldn’t allow
the site to start processing fridges.
However, the Environment Agency
received information that the company was dismantling
refrigeration units at the site and on 24 June
2004 wrote an official warning letter telling
the company to stop this activity immediately.
This warning was repeated at a meeting in July
when Environment Agency officers demanded that
the site be cleared of fridges and all processing
of them be stopped.
Mr Cooper told the court that
video footage taken by undercover Environment
Agency officers on 9, 13 and 22 July showed the
company was still dismantling fridges and refrigeration
units, and turning them into scrap metal.
A statement from Doctor Paul
Salter, expert witness for the Environment Agency,
was submitted to the court. Doctor Salter stated
that there was no doubt in his mind that the actions
of Van Dalen had resulted directly in CFCs being
released into the environment and these would
have caused harm to the ozone layer.
When environment officers formally searched the
site on 30 July 2004 they saw more than 1,000
fridges and refrigeration units being stored in
various stages of dismantling, some of them outside
of the area with sealed drainage. Drainage channels
were blocked by insulating foam and a board in
the office said “sales to 29 July £41,500”.
On 16 September 2004 Van Dalen
failed another trial of its fridge processing
equipment, on the basis that it was still not
removing enough CFCs from the insulation foam
in the refrigeration units.
At a further visit on 29 September
2004 Environment Agency officers saw that fridges
were still being dismantled.
Mr Cooper told the court that
at an interview in December 2004, a representative
of the company admitted that they had continued
to process fridges at the site, but claimed this
was ‘fine-tuning’ of the CFC removal process.
In mitigation, the company reminded
the court it had entered a prompt guilty plea
and that it didn’t have any previous convictions.
It claimed it has also spent £500,000 on
new equipment and invested £1.5 million
on recycling equipment.
When passing sentence, the magistrates
commented that they were not persuaded that the
company was the victim of legislation, but said
that the environment was the victim.
Speaking after the case, Environment
Agency team leader Jacqui Savage said: “This was
a deliberate and calculated action by the company.
“They purposefully flouted the
law for profit, releasing chemicals that damaged
the ozone layer.
“The Environment Agency will
not tolerate companies that put profit before
the environment.”
