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Fines totalling £113,500 have been handed out to seven companies – five of them construction – following investigations by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) into a site in South Lanarkshire.
The site at Bardykes Bing, located between Cambuslang and Blantyre, is operated by Doonin Plant. The firm pled guilty last year to disposing of controlled waste in a manner likely to cause pollution of the environment or harm to human health.
It was originally fined just £8,000, but on 3 August, the High Court of Justiciary raised the fine to £90,000.
Five construction companies also pled guilty at Glasgow Sheriff Court to depositing controlled waste on the site when no waste management licence was in force:
- C.E.P. Demolitions - fined £7,500 on 29 September 2009.
- JCJ (Demolition and Construction) - fined £2,500 on 15 February 2010.
- George Hunter (Demolishers) - fined £6,000 on 4 March 2010.
- E. Nicholson & Sons (Metals) - fined £2,250 on 16 March 2010.
- St Andrews Demolition & Construction - fined £2,250 on 16 March 2010.
Additionally, Enviroclean (Scotland) was fined £3,000 on 25 November 2009 for failing to provide SEPA with waste transfer notes for waste sent to the site.
The investigation into the site began after SEPA became concerned about the way waste activities were being carried out at Bardykes Bing. The site had a number of exemptions in place which allowed it to take in specified waste and carry out specified treatment (ie. chipping wood or crushing concrete). All waste should either have been removed from site at a later date for re-use or moved off site once processed.
As a result of routine inspections carried out in 2006, SEPA suspended the waste management licence held by Doonin Plant for the site. Following public complaints it was decided to undertake a surveillance operation to determine the size of the operation.
On six days during January 2007, 81 deposits of waste were witnessed being carried out by a number of different companies. Bulldozers were seen flattening and moving the waste, and then covering it in soil. Waste was not sorted for treatment or re-use and mixed wastes were buried in such a way to make it unusable or very difficult and costly to re-use it in the future.
Once SEPA's investigation was complete, reports on Doonin Plant and the six companies seen using the site were prepared and sent to the Procurator Fiscal.
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