Mr Evans, had demolished a greenhouse at his garden centre. He engaged a haulier, the respondent, to carry the rubble to his other garden centre site to form the base of a car park. The haulier was charged with the unlawful deposit of controlled waste contrary to section 33 of the 1990 Act. The justices found that at no stage had the owner discarded the rubble as waste. He intended to retain and use it in the same form that in which it had left the Standish garden centre. The Environment Agency appealed.
Held: The justices were in these particular circumstances entitled to find that the rubble was not waste. It could not be inferred the rubble had been discarded by its owner, Mr Evans.
Sir Anthony May stated the question to be answered: ‘the main question in the present case was whether the material delivered to Mr Evans’ Cheadle site should be classified as waste and that the answer to that was primarily to be inferred from Mr Evans’ actions and that those depend on whether or not he intended to discard the substances in question.’
Sir Anthony May, President, and Dobbs J
[2009] Env LR 33, [2009] PTSR CS47, [2009] JPL 1621, [2009] EWHC 670 (Admin)
Bailii
Environmental Protection Act 1990 33
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Ezeemo and Others v Regina CACD 16-Oct-2012
The defendants had been charged with offences relating to their intended transporting of waste materials to Nigeria. They appealed, complaining that the judge had directed that the offence under regulation 23 was an offence of strict liability.
Environment
Updated: 09 November 2021; Ref: scu.330988