Two items of environmental enforcement caught our attention this month. The first is close to home, with SEPA reporting the following:
A Director of McIntyres, operating at sites across the central belt of Scotland has been fined £34,000 for offences to poor storage and recycling activity of waste tyres. The company pled guilty to:
- Exceeding the maximum permitted storage height for tyres, failing to install fire resistant walls, storing a quantity of tyres without the authority of a waste management licence, and keeping tyres on site for a period exceeding three months
- Keeping in excess of 15,000 end of life tyres at a site in Alloa.
- Keeping in excess of 1,000 tyres and burned tyre residue in Dundee.
- Keeping in excess of 1,180 loose tyres and in excess of 14,340 baled in Huntly.
- Keeping in excess of 6,900 tyres in Lathalmond in Fife.
The matter was investigated by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and reported to the Procurator Fiscal. Essentially, the company was in breach of its Waste Management Licence and was also excessive volumes of tyres. Despite several warnings and enforcement notices the company failed to act and, therefore had no defence.
The lesson here – remember to react to official documentation and requests.
Further afield, a US cruise liner is to pay a record fine of $40m (£31m) for dumping oil-contaminated waste, the US Department of Justice has said.
The investigation into Princess Cruise Lines followed a tip-off that the company had illegally discharged oily waste off the coast of England in 2013 after a ships engineer quit his position when the ship reached Southampton.
US investigators began to probe the ship’s actions after an engineer reported an illegal dump off the English coast using equipment including a so-called “magic pipe” to bypass pollution-prevention tools that separate oil and monitor oil levels in the ship’s water. The firm had also tried to cover up other waste dumping investigations found.
The charges relate to the Caribbean Princess cruise ship, which the department said had been making illegal discharges since 2005, one year after the vessel started operations.
It agreed to plead guilty to seven charges related to stops at ports in nine US states and two territories.