A NORTH Yorkshire recycling firm has been fined £20,000 for breaching a permit at a landfill site.
Yorwaste, owned by North Yorkshire County Council and City of York Council, manages more than one million tonnes of waste each year, and provides a range of services from engineered landfill and recycling to liquid waste treatment and the supply of landfill gas for power generation.
The company was also ordered to pay costs of £2,500 to the Environment Agency, which brought the case, and a £15 victim surcharge at Skipton magistrates court for breaching its permit conditions at Skibden Quarry landfill.
Yorwaste Limited, whose head quarters are in Northallerton, operates Skibden Quarry landfill near Skipton. The site is regulated by an environmental permit from the Environment Agency. The landfill site receives non-hazardous landfill waste from households, commerce and industry. Local councils and private companies have all deposited waste at the site.
Holly Webb, prosecuting for the Environment Agency explained to the court how one of the permit conditions states there should be no more than one metre depth of leachate at the landfill site. Leachate is a liquid that comes from the waste as it degrades and can pollute groundwater if it is not properly managed.
On 28 August 2008 Environment Agency officers conducted a routine inspection at the site. They saw pools of water and one area had landfill gas bubbling through it.
Officers discussed the levels of leachate with site staff and were told that on the previous day levels were higher than set out in the permit, at a depth of 7.8 metres.
On 9 October 2008, Yorwaste were served with a notice to reduce the leachate levels below a metre. On November 21 2008 Yorwaste were told that steps they had taken to address the levels were considered satisfactory following another site inspection.
Under the environmental permit, Yorwaste has to report leachate levels to the Environment Agency on a regular basis. Three further breaches of 3.39 metres, 6.1 metres and 12.5 metres were recorded in 2009 after the notice conditions had been met.
In interview, Yorwaste accepted that leachate levels were higher than they should have been.
Yorwaste said they had spent over £300,000 on leachate control and tankering leachate off the site during 2009.
Permitted levels were revised to three metres on 20th August 2010 in a new permit after Yorwaste submitted a revised
application.
In mitigation, Yorwaste entered an early guilty plea, they complied with the notice given to them in 2008 and the leachate did not cause environmental harm.
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