Waste company fined for damaging soil quality

A waste carrier company has been fined more than £11,000 for illegally dumping subsoil adjacent to homes in Kent.

Eden Grab Services of Hornchurch, Essex, pleaded guilty to seven counts of depositing waste on an unauthorised site.

The business dumped seven to ten lorry loads of muck-subsoil on a plot of land behind a house that was owned by a woman who intended to use the space to keep horses.

She had given the company permission to access her land and allowed deposits of dirt. However, the subsoil was classed as controlled waste due to its origins on a construction site.

The Environment Agency found that the waste was not suitable to be used as soil unless treated to remove the demolition material.

Environment officer Laura Dowsett commented: "Illegal waste activities are common in this area and have seriously affected a large section of green belt land."

According to statistics from the organisation, 28 per cent of serious land pollution incidents in 2008 were caused by waste management facilities. However, the number of incidents of this kind have fallen by 59 per cent since 2002.

Posted by Claire Manning