The Environment Agency (EA) has revoked the operating licenses of two waste management firms this month.

Think Environmental Ltd was the operator of a site specialising in shredding, bio drying and storing waste which burnt down in 2012, and had previously been fined £33,000 and ordered to pay a further £15,000 in costs for illegally burying waste and failing to control odours.

Its permit was revoked on 23 May 2013 with the EA ordering the company to remove the remaining waste on site. More charges were brought against the company last year because it had only removed 25 per cent of the illegally buried waste eight months after the deadline for clearing the site had passed.

Think Environmental Ltd started an appeal against the revocation in December 2013, and earlier this month, the appeal was dismissed.

The company consistently failed to comply and are ‘likely to re-offend’

In upholding the revocation, the inspector Isobel McCretton stated: “Given the sustained non-compliance and offending at the site and failure to comply with a raft of enforcement measures, I consider that the Environmental Permit should be revoked.

‘The revocation notice was issued after a sustained period of non-compliance with the permit. Advice, warnings, other enforcement action, voluntary agreements and Post Conviction Plans all failed to secure removal of the excess waste from the site and the paddock and compliance with the permit conditions.”

She added: ‘There was a repeat pattern of offending with serious impact on health and the environment. There were ongoing environmental problems at the site and the Environment Agency considered that the appellant was likely to re-offend.”

The Environment Agency ‘cracking down on poorly performing waste sites’

The EA is taking a new approach to tackling poorly performing sites; in some cases revoking permits to prevent further waste activities, even where prosecution may not have begun. The EA says this is necessary to ‘tackle these problem sites and their impact on legitimate businesses and the environment’.

As an example of this, waste management company has had its operating permit revoked (and an appeal dismissed) after the company was found to be quantities of waste exceeding its environmental permit for its skip business and waste transfer station at Oak Farm, Kingswinford in the West Midlands

Further, the company was found to have no ‘technically competent manager’, waste tipped and stored outside the appropriate bunkers, and ‘significant amounts of waste’ tipped outside the permit area.

The company failed to comply with a series of enforcement notices and their lack of action resulted in a number of waste fires.

As an appeal on the decision has been rejected, and the company has been given six weeks to remove all waste from the site.

Speaking about the new approach to tackling poorly managed waste sites, Jonathan Hall from the EA said: “We will not tolerate operators who continually breach the conditions of their permits, or pose unacceptable risks to the environment. We’re taking action against poorly performing waste sites because, in our opinion, these permit holders are not competent to operate in line with their permits and their operations pose a serious risk to the environment.

“Failure to comply with an environmental permit is an offence and undermines those legitimate businesses which make sure they do comply.”

Read more about how the Environment Agency tackles waste crime.