Herefordshire crisp giant, Tyrrells, fined £20,000 for polluting stream with waste (From Hereford Times)

Herefordshire crisp giant, Tyrrells, fined £20,000 for polluting stream with waste

7:00am Monday 23rd November 2009

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)

AN award-winning Herefordshire company praised for its environmental work has been fined £20,000 for polluting a stream.

Environment Agency officers found discharge coming from Tyrrells’s Stretford headquarters was affecting river life in Tippets Brook two kilometres (1.2 miles) away.

The potato chip giant was named Green Business of the Year at the 2007 Herefordshire and Worcestershire Chamber of Commerce Awards when it was praised for the way it recycled sunflower oil and used a bore hole as a primary water supply.

But Tyrrells admitted this week at Hereford Magistrates Court to allowing a polluting matter to enter a controlled water without a discharge consent and to causing it to be poisonous or injurious to spawn or food of fish.

Mohammed Yakub, prosecuting, said waste matter from cleaning vegetables left water so cloudy the river bed near Leominster could not be seen.

A reed bed filter system was introduced before Tyrrells’ current owners took over in April 2008, but in December, it was found in a state of neglect, encrusted with scum and smelling of rotting vegetables, he said.

Agency officers found the number of suspended solid particles present in the brook was 328 milligrams per litre – the acceptable level being about 30 – and an ecological appraisal found its biological community had been “significantly affected” by a thick growth of fungal sewage present up to 500 metres downstream.

“The system in place at the time was incapable of dispatching effluent on the site to an acceptable standard,” Mr Yakub said.

Andrew Litchfield, defending, said Tyrrells had shown a “complete commitment” to “up its game” regarding environmental impact issues and that since then all waste had been tankered off site at a cost of £250,000.

Plans to buy a £100,000 machine, currently being hired to recycle waste water, were also in place, he said, and it was no longer possible for effluent to reach the brook.

“It has been treated very, very seriously from the moment it was drawn to their attention,” said Mr Litchfield.

Outside court, Jim Hepburn, of the Environment Agency, said: “We are pleased that since we found the problem, the company is now implementing long-term solutions to treating its waste water.”

Tyrrells chief executive officer Les Sayers said: “At Tyrrells, we operate a stringent environmental policy and we’re regretful that this isolated incident occurred.”

The firm was also ordered to pay £9,008 in costs and a £15 victim surcharge.

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)