BioConstruct New Energy Limited has been ordered to pay fines and costs amounting to almost £26,000 for failing to control odour coming from its South Tyneside plant.
Based at Preston Farm Industrial Estate, Stockton-on-Tees, the company appeared at South Tyneside Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, 28 February and pleaded guilty to breaching its environmental permit by allowing odour to be released. The court also heard further charges of failing to comply with two enforcement notices.
The company’s anaerobic digestion plant at Wardley Colliery near West Boldon, South Tyneside, which makes energy from waste food, breached its odour management plan, leading to unregulated and smelly gases released into the air and impacting residents. BioConstruct was fined £16,000 and ordered to pay costs of almost £10,000.
The Environment Agency in the North East, represented by Andrew Turner, Area Environment Manager, highlighted the importance of environmental permits to protect the public and the environment. He warned that companies who breach their permits and flout the law will be prosecuted.
BioConstruct was required to have an odour management plan in place, with gas emissions outside the site odour-free and regularly monitored. The Environment Agency received over 25 complaints about smells coming from the plant on 26 June 2020.
During its inspection, several breaches of the company’s odour management plan were found, including a failure to properly maintain the gas flare, which increases the risk of venting raw gas out through the pressure release valve. The gas flare was subsequently repaired.
However, during Environment Agency site inspections in 2021, odour at the plant continued to be an issue. The Agency issued two enforcement notices in July and September to bring the site back into compliance.
The company claimed that supply chain issues had caused delays in complying with the notices, and improvements in the odour management plan and installation of odour abatement units and their performance monitoring were not complied with by the deadlines.
The court accepted that the company had remorse and accepted responsibility for the offence. The court also accepted that the offending had not been commercially motivated, and steps had been taken to remedy the problem. The court heard that the company had previously been fined in 2019 for causing off-site odour pollution at another of its plants in Middlesbrough.
»BioConstruct New Energy Limited is ordered to pay fines«
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