£30k fine for foul smells

Waste processing company Think Environmental was labelled "negligent, if not grossly negligent" and fined £30,000 for failing to prevent smells of rotting waste escaping from a site at Burton Latimer in Northamptonshire

The Environment Agency issued 10 formal warnings to the company that it had to deal with odours from its site, after receiving 345 complains in a two-year period from September 2009. The court was told that local residents had been forced to stay indoors because of the strength of the odours.

Despite being repeatedly told the site was in breach of its environmental permit, the firm’s director did not accept there was an issue and the odour-control plans submitted by the firm were deemed inadequate by the agency.

An agency investigation revealed that the site had taken on more waste than it should have, as well as the wrong type, and that there were holes in the membranes covering the waste.

Think Environmental was fined an additional £3,000 for failing to meet a separate enforcement notice to clear a nearby field of waste that had been illegally buried there in 2009.

Think Environmental and one of its directors were fined a total of £30,000 in February 2011 over the illegal burial of the waste.