A Rotherham company was fined £100,000 (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 1990.
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.”
From The Environment Agency