The Environment Agency (EA) says its joint road stop with Kent Rural Police led to £2,300 worth of fixed penalty fines being issued.
The EA says its officers worked with Kent Police’s Rural Task Force across the Swale Area in Kent checking vehicles carrying waste or vehicles that routinely carry waste as part of their business, to make sure their vehicles and paperwork were correct.
The EA says it was inspecting vehicles to check they had a valid waste carrier’s licence. As well as the licence, it checked that they had a required waste transfer note describing what waste they were carrying, where they picked the waste up from and where they were taking it to.
This should serve as a warning to those who would flout the law that we and our partners will continue to search out waste crime.
They stopped 8 vehicles carrying waste and issued 9 fixed penalty notices totalling £2,300. Offences included insecure load, driving without insurance, driving without a licence, driving without a seat belt and defective tyres. They also performed 2 searches under the control of pollution act.
Environment Manager for the Environment Agency, Lyndsay Faulkner, said: “This should serve as a warning to those who would flout the law that we and our partners will continue to search out waste crime and we won’t hesitate to take action when operators are acting illegally.
“To avoid giving your waste to an illegal waste carrier and it ending up at an illegal waste site, we encourage the public and businesses to ask for their waste collector’s waste carrier’s registration number and ask to see their waste transfer note – they must be able to produce both. We also encourage people not to pay in cash for waste collections.”