Environment Protection Authority Victoria (EPA) will consider its legal options following a verdict in the Heidelberg Magistrates Court on Wednesday (2 May 2018), that saw a tyre recycling company and its director fined $6,000 and ordered to pay costs of $2,000 for multiple contraventions of environment protection laws.
ELT Recycling Australia Pty Ltd, based in Thomastown, and its sole director Tony Song were charged with a number of offences for stockpiling as much as six times the permitted number of tyres at the premises. The company had previously paid an infringement penalty of more than $7,000 for similar offending, but had failed to pay two further infringement notices totalling more than $15,000.
While EPA welcomes the finding of guilt by the Court, it believes that the Court’s sentence would disappoint a community that expects recycling businesses to be mindful of their duties to protect the environment and human health from dangerous waste stockpiles.
ELT Recycling Australia also gained a clear financial advantage over other tyre recyclers by continuing to accept waste tyres into its growing stockpile. EPA had given explicit directions to ELT going back to early 2016 to reduce its tyre stockpiles, which at times exceeded 32,000 Equivalent Passenger Units (EPU). An EPA works approval and licence must be granted to store more than 5,000 EPUs, and the company had not applied for any such permission.
Fires in tyre stockpiles are particularly dangerous and difficult to extinguish, which is why EPA is particularly vigilant to ensure they are properly managed. ELT Recycling Australia’s premises was found by MFB to have a number of significant fire risks, including lack of effective sprinkler systems, stockpiles positioned underneath power lines, and lack of access for fire-fighting appliances.
When a tyre fire occurs, the smoke from that fire contains gases and substances that are toxic and harmful to humans, including: particulate matter, carbons dioxide, benzene, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, dioxins, furans, polychlorinated biphenyl, arsenic, cadmium, nickel, zinc, mercury, chromium and vanadium. Further, liquid run-off from tyre fires contain substances which pollute soil groundwater and surface waters, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, benzene, styrene, phenols, butadiene and heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium, nickel, zinc, lead and mercury.
“ELT Recycling Australia and Mr Song admitted to the court that they significantly exceeded the permitted level, failed to pay the fines EPA imposed and that they did not adequately manage their tyre stockpile. While imposing appropriate sentences for environmental offences can be difficult, the environment and the community were put at serious risk in this case and that community would be disappointed by the low level of the fine,” said EPA CEO Nial Finegan.