A metal and waste recycling company in South Wales has been fined £64,000 for environmental offences after a fire broke out at its plant.
In 2021, a large-scale fire broke out at the S L Recycling plant in Ystrad Mynach Caerphilly, after a lithium-ion battery exploded when a vehicle shell was crushed.
The fire spread to the primary stockpile of scrap metal stored centrally within the yard, where around 150 tonnes of recycling material, including plastic, foam, electrical items, lead batteries, and gas cylinders, caught fire, alongside machinery.
S L Recycling Limited pleaded guilty to three separate charges at Newport Crown Court in a case brought by Natural Resources Wales (NRW). The company was fined £64,000 and ordered to pay £30,000 in costs, as well as a victim surcharge of £190.
The court heard that the waste on the site was excessively large in volume, exceeding the maximum 4-metre storage height set out in the Fire Prevention Mitigation Plan (FPMP), and breaching the conditions of the environmental permit.
NRW officers raised concerns over the storage height during a site visit on 4 February 2021, where they advised the company director that the height of the primary stockpile needed to be reduced to 4 metre.
The height of the waste made it difficult for firefighters to safely extinguish and segregate the hotspots within the stockpile of waste, the NRW said.
This case demonstrates what can happen when operators don’t adhere to the conditions of their permits.
David Griffiths, Industry and Waste Team Leader for Natural Resources Wales said: “This case demonstrates what can happen when operators don’t adhere to the conditions of their permits. Their actions to disregard our warnings about the height of the stockpiles led to this fire, which ultimately led to significant environmental impacts.
“We welcome the sentence handed down today and hope that it serves as a strong reminder to waste operators that any disregard for environmental regulations will not be tolerated.”
The FPMP also required S L Recycling Limited to have a designated quarantine area on site, which could be used as a designated location to place affected waste in the event of a fire to ensure it is fully extinguished.
At the Penallta site, the area was found to be insufficient to effectively deal with the incident given the volume and size of the waste stockpile.
The NRW said that due to the volume of water required to manage and extinguish the fire, the site’s drainage inceptor became overwhelmed. This caused contaminated water to run off the site and large amounts of waste oil to wash through local watercourses.
The pollution had a significant effect on the Nant Cylla and River Rhymney Confluence with impacts observed over 2.3km from the site, the NRW said.
These included strong smells of oil and fuel, the presence of foam, high levels of suspended solids in the nearby watercourses and staining of the riverbank.
A full biological and fisheries sampling survey carried out by officers from NRW found a total number of 175 dead fish over a 2.3 km stretch of watercourse, including trout and bullhead.
