Waste firm directors fined over illegal operations

During the sentencing, the judge said both men had long experience in the waste industry

Two men have been fined after pleading guilty to operating waste sites without environmental permits and falsifying hazardous waste documents.

Cats and Dust Ltd was fined £10,000 following an investigation by the Environment Agency (EA) in 2021 at premises at Twin Lakes Industrial Estate in Croston, Lancashire.

Director Cavin Mears, 45, from Euxton, Chorley, and former director Stephen Bryce, 45, from Lancaster, were both given a 12-month community order requiring unpaid work with fines and costs totalling more than £17,000.

The judge at Preston Crown Court said the pair's conduct was deliberate and financially motivated, the EA said.

'Blatant disregard for the law'

The court heard Mears and Bryce were previously directors of RF Recycling Ltd, a company that operated a regulated facility without an environmental permit at Unit 6, Twin Lakes Industrial Estate, Croston, Lancashire, between January 2020 and June 2020.

Following a visit from the EA in October 2021, RF Recycling ceased trading.

However, Cats and Dust Ltd commenced trading immediately afterwards, operating unlawfully from a separate unit within the same trading estate until January 2022, the court heard.

Mears, who was a director of RF Recycling Ltd, is the sole director of Cats and Dust Ltd while Bryce resigned as a director of Cats and Dust Ltd in September 2021, shortly before the company began trading.

'Financially motivated'

During the sentencing, Judge Mathieson said both men had long experience in the waste industry, including working with hazardous materials, and therefore should have been fully aware of their legal responsibilities, the EA said.

He described their conduct as reckless at the outset, but later deliberate and financially motivated, with falsified paperwork used to conceal their actions.

He added their disregard for regulations demonstrated they "didn't care about obligations and didn't care about the impact on people, property or the environment".

Shannon Nicholson, environmental crime team leader at the EA, said Mears and Bryce "demonstrated a blatant disregard for the law".

"This case shows that those who attempt to profit from waste crime will be held to account," she said.