Court case points to bigger fines for environmental offences.
A wine company has been fined £70,000 for offences under the packaging waste regulations. Bibendum, a wine import and distribution company should have been registered under the packaging waste regulations and contributing towards recycling targets between 1998 and 2005.
Although the company is now complying, court action was taken to recover the costs for the 1,370 tonnes of packaging waste that the company should have paid for recycling but did not. The fine of £70,000 is intended to comprise the original costs avoided by the company with an additional £15,000 for non-compliance.
This case reflects a trend of bigger fines and more stringent prosecutions for businesses that ignore environmental legislation. Prosecutions are also increasingly affecting small and medium sized (SME) businesses. Three quarters of the businesses fined over £5,000 for breaching environmental laws in 2006 were SMEs with the average SME fine topping £14,500.