Tyreshredder.com, a tire shredding company located in Lancashire, United Kingdom, has been fined £2,500 (US$3,400) at Lancaster Magistrates’ Court for failing to comply with the conditions of a waste management license and operating without a waste management license during a period of suspension. The company also was ordered to pay £2,500 (US$4,300) to the Environment Agency.
The company had been granted a waste management license around three years ago. The license limited the quantity of tires which could be stored and treated on site to a maximum of 90 metric tons, with shredded tires to be stored in skips on a concrete surface and whole tires to be stored only in the event of the breakdown of the shredding machinery.
The license also imposed the condition that within two years, the company was required to employ a person with a Waste Management Industry Training and Advisory Board certificate of technical competence. The company failed to do so and as a result its license was suspended in February 2004.
Less than a month later the director of the company, Steven Dyer, told the Environment Agency that he had employed a technically competent person so the suspension was revoked. It later transpired that the person had never worked for the company so in July it was served a notice of suspension of its license. It was also served with a notice requiring it to take specific steps to comply with its license conditions including the requirement to remove the large amount of shredded tires from the site.
Agency officers visited the site the following month and found over 100 metric tons of shredded tire. A notice of partial revocation of authorization to carry out activities was served followed by a notice requiring that all waste be removed from site within a month.