A Sunderland waste disposal business has been fined 6,000GBP after admitting illegally burning rubbish at an unlicensed site.

Nor-Skips Limited today pleaded guilty at Sunderland Magistrates’ Court to two environmental offences at its site at the Alexandra Industrial Estate in Pallion.

The company, of Pallion Trading Estate, Sunderland, also was ordered to pay full prosecution costs of £1,331.05 and a victim surcharge of £15.

Trevor Cooper, prosecuting for the Environment Agency, said the company was a registered waste carrier but was neither permitted to bring waste back to the Alexandra Industrial Estate site nor to burn waste.

He told the court the fire service was called to Nor-Skips’s site at about 9.30pm on 5 November 2008.

Two fire crews attended and found seven separate fires on open ground - each blaze was burning mixed waste, piled up to four metres high and five metres in diameter. Security camera footage showed the fires had been started at 5.45pm.

To put out the fire would have taken six fire engines for up to 12 hours and the fire service did not have the resources available on such a busy night. Instead, firefighters kept a watching brief overnight.

An environment officer attended the following morning and found the site was covered in piles of brick, rubble, wood and general construction waste, some of it smoking or still on fire. The site manager said the fire was started the previous evening as a “controlled burn”.

When the officer returned a few days later, she saw some of the waste piles were bigger and more rubble had been brought onto the site.

In a subsequent interview, a company director confirmed waste had been brought to the site for sorting and what could not be salvaged was sent to landfill. He was unaware the company’s waste carrier’s licence did not cover this activity and said he did not know wood could not be burned.

The Environment Agency sent the company information about necessary permits and how to apply but no application was received.

The environment officer returned to the site in January 2009 and found even more waste than there had been in November. A member of staff said demolition materials were being brought back for burning and was warned to stop immediately.

Mr Cooper told the bench an environmental permit to run a waste transfer station of this size would cost about £2,800 and it was a business’s responsibility to ensure it complied with all relevant environmental laws.

The court heard Nor-Skips no longer uses this site and in April 2009 obtained a permit for a transfer station at other premises in the area.

Company director George Lemon said he thought the business had complied with the law but the magistrates said he should have taken further advice.

In mitigation, the court heard Nor-Skips had committed no previous environmental offences and company was given credit for an early guilty plea.

Nor-Skips Limited was charged with two offences:

1. On and before 7 January 2009 in the district of Sunderland did operate a regulated facility at Alexandra Industrial Estate, Pallion, other than under and to the extent authorised by an environmental permit.Contrary to Regulation 12 and 38(1)(a) of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2007 and Section 2 of the Pollution Prevention and Control Act 1991.

2. On and before 6 November 2008 in the district of Sunderland did submit controlled waste to a listed operation which was carried out on land at Alexandra Industrial Estate, Pallion and the operation was carried out not under and in accordance with an environmental permit.

Contrary to Section 33(1)(b) as amended and 33(6) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.