Waste company fined for spoiling air quality

The UK's leading waste management provider was fined this week for damaging air quality.

Veolia Environmental Services, which employs 12,500 people in the UK and is part of world industry leader Veolia Environnement, was forced to pay the Environment Agency £26,737 for breaking a condition of their permit which stated that all their emissions must be free from odours.

Environment officer Holly Linham said the agency first became aware of the unpleasant stench when members of the public phoned their incident hotline number to report odour problems at the site.

"We went out and conducted odour surveys and detected bad smells from the site on 20 separate occasions," she said.

"On numerous occasions we found the odour to be offensive and considered it to be having a significant negative impact on the local area."

Only last month, Veolia Environmental Services launched its new waste manifesto at the UK's first Futuresource European sustainability event.

Written by Lauren Steadman