Tipper firm may sue over TV slur
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• A Manchester waste haulier is threatening to sue over allegations made in a television programme that it dumped contaminated waste to be used as landscaping material for a golf centre.
On 6 April Channel 4's Dispatches programme showed trucks from Manchester Tippers taking contaminated waste to a construction site at Trafford Park which is being developed as a golf driving range.
By dumping the waste there Manchester Tippers avoided the landfill tax, which allows waste to be used on construction sites if it is not deemed to be a health risk.
But Biffa Waste Services, which made an unsuccessful bid for the contract, alleged the contamination was above acceptable levels and supplied data to the Environment Agency to support its claim. However the Environment Agency found no cause to take action against Manchester Tippers.
Manchester Tippers' managing director John Walsh is upset by the way the programme portrayed his company. "We are disgusted," he says. "Nothing was done in a hidden way. We had permission to take the waste to the Trafford site and, although in one or two instances it exceeded the limits, overall it was within the limits of what can be taken there."
Walsh says his lawyers are considering whether to take any action against the independent production company which made the programme for Dispatches.
Peter Jones, director of external affairs at Biffa, is now calling for tighter supervision of contaminated waste. But he stresses that he is not accusing Manchester Tippers of any wrongdoing. "Manchester Tippers did not break any regulations and it wasn't our intention to suggest that they did," says Jones. We merely wished to draw attention to the ease with which potentially hazardous pollutants can be dumped on unregulated sites."