Two Canterbury businesses have been fined for releasing contaminates into the air. 

Both Darwin Earthworks Ltd and Heathstock Haulage Ltd pleaded guilty to burning demolition waste including plastics, treated timber, asbestos in concrete and rubber tyres, breaching parts of Environment Canterbury's Natural Resources Regional Plan (NRRP).

Heathstock Haulage Ltd transported demolition material from another site under contract to a separate company.  The offending waste was then placed in a pit and burnt each day for six days.

 

Darwin Earthworks Ltd burnt demolition waste from derelict buildings which they had stockpiled. Environment Canterbury estimated that the three stockpiles were about 100 cubic metres each.

Environment Canterbury Resource Management Director Kim Drummond said "the rules are there to ensure we have clean air."

"Burning materials like these two companies have done can seriously affect the health and wellbeing of individuals as well as harming the environment.

"It appears if we had not been alerted to the issue, then they would have continued on to bury the residue. This would have had the potential to then contaminate ground water and cause further damage to the environment."

"The prosecution of these two companies is a warning to all businesses involved directly or indirectly with demolition.  Materials must be sorted and disposed of in the correct manner, at authorised waste-handling facilities."

During the sentencing of Heathstock Haulage Ltd Judge Doherty agreed that one of the real issues, and an important purpose of sentencing, is deterrence.

"There ought to be a message to those in this community, particularly given the amount of demolition material that has been occasioned by the earthquake, that prohibited and unlawful disposal will be treated seriously by the Court."

In both instances Judge Colin Doherty accepted that the localised environmental effects were at the lower end of the scale for environmental cases.  However, the cumulative effect that such pollution can have on the wider environment was also acknowledged.

Drummond was satisfied with the outcomes in both cases and hopes that other companies realise how serious this kind of offending is and that action will be taken against those found breaching the rules.

 

- © Fairfax NZ News

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