A man from Co. Down was issued with a fine of £2,000 (€2,325) for breaches of waste management legislation, according to the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA).
The defendant, Brendan Small of Flush Road, Newcastle, was fined at Downpatrick Magistrates’ Court in Northern Ireland earlier this week on Monday (June 7).
Northern Ireland Environment Agency officers investigated a site on Flush Road, Newcastle, from September 2018 to February 2019, where they found large quantities of construction and demolition waste, high value scrap metal and rubbish being burned.
Further site inspection showed the waste had been crushed using an industrial crusher. No permits or licences were in place at the time of investigation to permit these activities.
Small was interviewed under caution and admitted to crushing the waste and depositing the scrap metal on site. He now has a permit for the crusher.
Brendan Small pleaded guilty to the offences and was fined £1,000 under each of two articles of the Waste and Contaminated Land (Northern Ireland) Order 1997, DAERA notes.
These related to the unauthorised deposit of, and the unauthorised treatment of, controlled waste at the lands in question, the department added. An offender’s levy of £15 (€17.44) was also paid by the defendant.
Earlier in June
Earlier this month (June 2) a 34-year-old Co. Down man was fined in court for offences relating to the illegal dumping of 5,500t waste on land without a licence.
The waste included a mixture of construction and demolition rubble, poultry manure and mushroom compost.
Officers from the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) found that the defendant had knowingly permitted controlled waste to be deposited on land which did not have a waste management licence, between June 5, 2013, and April 29, 2016.
Downey was also deemed to have kept controlled waste in a manner likely to cause pollution of the environment or harm to human health. He pleaded guilty to both charges.