DESPITE initially suggesting that it would be opposing an application to renew two licences for a recycling company after it was subject to a fine for illegally disposing of waste, Thurrock Council has now approved the licences.

An application has been received for renew a Scrap Metal Dealer Site Licence for

European Metal Recycling Ltd (EMR) operates two sites in the borough, at Station Road, East Tilbury, and on the Port of Tilbury.

In 2021 EMR was fined £400,000, ordered to pay costs of £350,000 and given a confiscation order of £32,958 at Bristol Crown Court where the company had admitted, in 2016, sending 2001 tonnes of metal, foam and plastic shreds from scrap vehicles that had been pulverised at its Thurrock sites.

The material was sent from Tilbury Docks to a former limestone quarry near Chew Valley Reservoir in Somerset. The material was designated as non-hazardous 'mechanically treated soil substitute'.

The destination, Stowey Quarry was not allowed to receive such waste. Its operator, Foley, who was supposed to be accepting a limited amount of clean, inert waste to create bunds and embankments as a waste recovery enterprise, was instead running an illegal landfill operation.

Foley was jailed for two years and three months and his company fined £72,000.

EMR admitted full responsibility for its actions.

It said it had been told to remove the material from Tilbury by the Environment Agency and, because its own site in the Midlands where further processing took place, was at capacity it contracted, through a waste disposal broker, to send the material to Somerset.

Most of the salvaged material at EMR's Tilbury site is transported by ship.

EMR said the decision was a flawed one, but occurred through an administrative error, rather than any criminal intent – a statement acknowledged by the judge when passing sentence.

The company said it had believed the site was permitted to receive the material.

In a statement at the time it said: "In the proceedings expert evidence was produced and accepted by the court which concluded that, if appropriate regulatory steps had been taken, this site should have been closed by 2015.

"Had this happened, no offences would have been committed by EMR. Our own compliance audit of the site was carried out 10 days after an Environment Agency visit which had concluded that there had been no permit non-conformances.

"The site operator was subsequently found guilty of deliberately misleading the Environment Agency as to the nature of activities at the site and sentenced to prison for 27 months."

EMR said the court accepted that the material it deposited at Stowey Quarry was not likely to cause pollution or harm health and that it did not commit the offences deliberately.

It said EMR was responsible for only approximately two per cent of the waste delivered to the site in 2016 and it had not used the site before and ceased doing so when the problem came to light.

The statement added: "EMR recognises the importance of maintaining the highest environmental standards and would like to assure all our colleagues, customers and the general public that we continue to work hard to create industry leading recycling processes to achieve this goal."

Because of the conviction, Thurrock Council initially said it was minded to refuse new licences for EMR's operations in the borough – but at a meeting of its licencing committee last night (Wednesday, 22 March), when the full circumstances of the case were explained, councillors agreed to grant the licenses.

The Port of Tilbury had backed EMR's application, saying: "We write in support of EMR which has been a tenant of Port of Tilbury for over 40 years and in that period we have always found them to be a responsible and competent operator."

EMR was represented at the committee meeting hearing by company secretary Christopher Tinsley who detailed all aspects of the company's operations, outlined in a letter than can be viewed here.

He detailed all aspects of what had happened in 2016 and presented the meeting with a full breakdown of what had happened – and the measures put in place since to stop it happening again.

EMR's East Tilbury site.

He also included details of the company's commitment to the local community which included support for local young people through its Young Futures Reimagined initiative, its support for the Tilbury-based One Community initiative, its sponsorship of local community events including Tilbury Picnic in the Park and its decade long sponsorship of Tilbury FC and its youth teams.

He concluded by saying: "Notwithstanding its otherwise excellent compliance record, EMR deeply regrets and has apologised for the Stowey Quarry prosecution.

"EMR has undertaken a comprehensive review of its policies and prodedures to ensure that the risk of a similar incident happening again has been reduced to the lowest possible level."

That review has included an investment programme costing £9 million in improving the site operation at the port.

Delivering their verdict, the committee said: "The committee accepts that the earlier offence was caused by an administrative error rather than by negligence and as such it is appropriate to grant the licence."