A Birmingham skip hire company and its director were sentenced on Friday (31 July) for carrying out an illegal waste operation.

The charges were brought by the Environment Agency under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2007. Both the company and director pleaded guilty at an earlier date to 6 charges, 3 against the company and 3 against the director.

The company director of Just Skips Limited, Mr Tayub Syed, received a 4 month suspended custodial sentence for each charge, to run concurrently. He also received 150 hours unpaid work, disqualification from being a company director for 5 years and ordered to pay costs of 3,000 GBP, along with a 15 GBP victim surcharge. Just Skips Ltd of 84 Wood Lane, Erdington was ordered to pay a total of 300 GBP in fines.

It was estimated that Just Skips Ltd saved in the region of 8500 GBP by running an illegal operation without a environmental permit.

Birmingham Magistrates’ Court heard that no environmental permit was in force on the land occupied by Just Skips. Companies which operate without an environmental permit stand to gain considerable financial advantage and make it difficult for the Environment Agency to regulate.

For the Environment Agency, Mark Lewis told the court that on 12 June 2008 Environment Officers visited the site at Wood Lane, Erdington. They witnessed the illegal deposit of various skips of waste including builders waste, household waste and wood. The company was ordered to remove all waste from the site as they were operating without an environmental permit.

A further site visit on 13 November 2008 revealed that the offences were continuing despite the earlier investigation and warnings. During the inspection general waste was seen covering the ground, along with 9 full skips of waste and a further 2 skips branded Just Skips.

Another site inspection took place on 30 April 2009 where the offences were again found to be continuing; similar waste seen in previous inspections had been deposited.

In interviews for each set of offences Mr Syed stated the company had been in financial difficulties. He claimed that the waste was taken to the site to be segregated in order to reduce disposal costs and that he was struggling to keep the company afloat. He had deliberately decided to continue to operate without a permit, despite the earlier warnings.

Speaking after the case, Mike White, an Environment Agency officer involved in the investigation said: “In order to protect the environment and ensure the correct disposal of waste, companies handling, depositing and storing waste must have in place an environmental permit. By not complying with regulations, companies are acting illegally, they risk damaging the local environment, and are undercutting legitimate businesses.”

He continued: "Mr Syed was repeatedly asked to remove the waste from his land and showed complete disregard for the law. There is no suggestion that the activities would have ceased but for the intervention of the Environment Agency."

In mitigation, the Court was told that no noxious substances had been deposited so as to pollute the environment, there was an effort to reduce costs to make the business more viable which had failed and Mr Syed was heavily in debt. It was also explained that all the company assets had been sold and the business had now ceased to trade.