AT THE HEART OF THE ROAD TRANSPORT INDUSTRY.

Call our Sales Team on 0208 912 2120

ENS E PICIII INIGS

16th October 1997
Page 52
Page 53
Page 52, 16th October 1997 — ENS E PICIII INIGS
Close
Noticed an error?
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.

Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Since the Environment Agency was set up it has prosecuted in some headline-making cases. But every day there are serious cases of pollution, not least by hauliers. Is the agency coping?

Like it or not, the public sees trucks as killer juggernauts and environmental polluters—and recent reports from a number of well-known authorities tend to support that prejudice.

A publication last month from the British Medical Association said the number of HGVrelated injuries per billion tonne-kilometres has been estimated as 24W—compared with 10 for rail freight. To make matters worse, the BMA pointed out that diesel particulates clog up lungs, aggravating bronchitis and asthma.

Hauliers have also been accused by the Government-run Environment Agency of becoming major polluters of our rivers.

More dramatically, incidents like the recent fly tipping of asbestos waste in Birmingham do little to help the industry's sullied image.

The Environment Agency says most pollution from trucks comes from road traffic accidents: many hauliers will have come across the agency as it tries to recoup accident clean-up costs from them.

Responsibility

But the agency's main area of responsibility for the road transport industry lies in dealing with operators who carry waste—legally or otherwise. It also deals with hauliers who pollute the water. Many problems come from leaks of diesel, oil and beer, but it may surprise operators to learn that serious pollution can be caused by something as seemingly innocuous as milk. In fact milk is up to 200 times more deadly to river life than raw sewage because it causes river bacteria to multiply, removing vital oxygen from the water.

Hauliers listening to the agency's rhetoric in the run up to its launch in April 1996 may have feared the big guns of enforcement which would soon be firing at them. The agency was, it said, committed to the "vigorous enforcement" of the law, "We will not hesitate to prosecute those who blatantly and repeatedly offend," said chief executive Ed Gallagher.

It is true the agency has brought some eyecatching prosecutions in its first 18 months: witness the gruesome case a few weeks ago in which the director of a Home Counties waste disposal company was jailed for 18 months for the illegal storage of clinical waste, including human body parts (CM 25 Sept-1 Oct).

But the Environment Agency's prosecution record has been attacked by a wide range of organisations, from representatives of truck operators to environ mental pressure groups. The Environmental Services Association, which represents waste disposal contractors and other waste dealers, registers "considerable disappointment" with the agency's prosecution record within the sector.

And Friends of the Earth calls the agency "hopeless" after accusing it of only prosecuting 17 companies from all industry sectors for water pollution offences when more than 2,000 alleged infringements were noted in the year to September 1996. That's a prosecution rate of just 0.85%.

The agency itself stated in its annual report in June that pollution from hauliers has been increasing, making truck operators some of the worst culprits when it comes to defiling English and Welsh rivers.

But it also admits that the number of prosecutions it has brought "are down" compared with the combined prosecutions brought by its three independent predecessors, the local authority-run Waste Regulation Authorities, the Nation Rivers Authority and Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Pollution. In 1996/97 the agency brought 330 prosecutions for waste offences; it is not clear how many its three predecessors brought between them.

The agency defends its low hit rate with the assertion that most of the infringements complained about by Friends of the Earth failed to cause "any measurable" water pollution. "In most cases the incidents are so minor that it would be crazy to do anything other than warn the company," it says.

It adds that it always chases major water and waste polluters with the utmost vigour. "Where flagrant breaches of legislation occur we don't hesitate to prosecute," says a spokeswoman. What's more, says the agency, it is recruiting more staff to improve its enforcement record.

But these new recruits will have to work hard to eradicate the level of criticism the agency has attracted so far.

Peter Neill, chief executive of the Environmental Services Association, says the agency has had a relative lack of success in policing the waste industry because it is woefully under-resourced and under-manned for the enormous enforcement job which is required of it. And it has found this weakness embarrassingly exposed under the glare of public outrage following high-profile fly tipping incidents, such as the asbestos incident in Birmingham.

Inspections

But Neill argues that the agency does not help by devoting so many of its inspections to high-quality operators and ignoring the more illusive and cowboy end of the market.

He points out that last year the agency made more than 120,000 inspections of just 7,500 waste dumps, while making only 6,600 checks of the 76,000 registered waste carriers. "The vast majority of the waste sites are run by large, reputable companies and it is much more likely that problems will be found among the many small carriers," says Neill.

However, he concedes that the agency is not helped by the lenient sentences handed out by magistrates when dealing with polluters. "Fines are ridiculously low," he says, "and if it has taken a great deal of time and effort to bring a prosecution it is very disheartening for agency staff."

Overall Neill is depressingly downbeat: "No-one can estimate fully the size of the task in hand. But the agency certainly did—as did the Government of the day It doesn't give us any pleasure to have turned out right on the subject."

-.by Karen Miles


comments powered by Disqus