Caird Environmental Ltd has been fined £2,500 at Airdrie Sheriff Court after poor leachate management at the Hartlouphill Landfill Site in late 1999 caused odour problems outside the site boundary.

SEPA received numerous complaints from local residents in late November and early December 1999 regarding odour from the Hartlouphill site, near Greengairs village in North Lanarkshire. SEPA environment protection officers traced the source to a breakout of leachate1. Failure to act promptly resulted in Caird Environmental Ltd being served a Notice requiring them to comply with site licence conditions. Work was undertaken and on the date of expiry of the Notice, the conditions were complied with. However complaints continued to be received by SEPA from the public, and following investigations on 17 December 1999 SEPA sent a report to the Procurator Fiscal.

“The odours experienced as a result of this problem were offensive in the extreme,” said Anne Anderson, Senior Environment Protection Officer. “This caused considerable loss of amenity to the local population of Wattston and Greengairs. Caird Environmental Ltd were advised on numerous previous occasions of the need to ensure that odours cannot be detected outwith the site boundary, yet the problem continued.”

Whilst SEPA prefers to work with industry to prevent pollution, this successful prosecution will send a clear message to other practitioners that SEPA will not hesitate to use its legislative powers when the law is being ignored.

ENDS

Notes for Editors

1. Leachate is the result of liquid seeping through a landfill and, by so doing, extracting substances from the deposited wastes giving a concentrated liquor. It is highly polluting in nature and due to contaminants present is also highly odourous. The exact contaminants present are dependent on the type of landfill and vary from site to site.