Dry cleaner fined £10,000 over dumped hazardous waste and missing notes
A London dry cleaner was fined over £10,000 after drums of solvent were dumped in a nature reserve, with one charge being a failure to produce waste notes. Here is the rule that would have stopped it.
A dry cleaning firm has been fined more than £10,000 after drums of hazardous solvent were dumped in a nature reserve. The case is a blunt reminder for anyone who handles waste. The paperwork is not optional, and not being able to produce it is an offence on its own.
What happened
Palm Dry Cleaners Ltd and its director were prosecuted by Redbridge Council after waste was fly-tipped at Aldborough Hall Nature Reserve in Ilford. The pile included blue dry-cleaning bags and two open metal drums holding super stabilised perchloroethylene, the solvent used in dry cleaning.
At Barkingside Magistrates' Court the company and its director pleaded guilty to two offences under the Environmental Protection Act 1990. One was failing to take reasonable steps to stop the illegal dumping of the waste. The other was failing to produce waste transfer notes. The fines, costs and surcharge came to £10,777.
Why the paperwork matters
Every business that produces, carries or takes in waste has a legal duty of care. Part of that duty is keeping a written record of the waste and being able to show it on request. A transfer note records who handed what waste to whom. Skip it, or fail to produce it, and you have broken the law, even before anyone works out where the waste ended up.
Dry cleaning solvent is hazardous, so the rules are stricter
Perchloroethylene is not ordinary waste. It is hazardous, and hazardous waste cannot travel on a plain transfer note. It needs a hazardous waste consignment note, a registered carrier, and a site that is permitted to take it. The more dangerous the waste, the more the law expects you to prove where it went.
How to stay on the right side of it
It is not complicated. Use a registered carrier, send the right note with every load, and keep your records for the full period. Then make sure you can find them fast, whether that is at a roadside stop or an inspection.
The notes cost nothing but a moment. The fine here was £10,777. That is the whole lesson.