Nuplex fined for smelly waste

By ANNE BESTON

A hazardous waste disposal company has been fined $29,000 for an illegal odour discharge and ordered to publish details of its conviction in its annual report.

Nuplex Environmental is a wholly owned subsidiary of Nuplex Industries, a multimillion-dollar company with a string of pollution convictions, including a record single pollution fine of $55,000 this year.

Appearing before Judge Frederick McElrea in the Auckland District Court, Nuplex Environmental was convicted and fined $20,000 for the discharge, $9000 for the contravention of an enforcement order, and ordered to pay the Auckland Regional Council's costs of $1021.

Nuplex Environmental has two previous convictions.

Parent company Nuplex Industries, which is involved in resin-making and other chemical manufacturing, has five pollution convictions dating back to 1998.

Nuplex Environmental disposes of hazardous waste and operates the biggest dangerous goods facility in Auckland.

Its licence to operate the East Tamaki dangerous goods facility was cancelled last month after an independent assessor found there was "inadequate provision for fire protection/safety" at the site, and there was a risk of a major explosion.

Waste accepted by Nuplex Environmental includes used oil, paint thinners, cleaning liquids and other solvents, acids and cyanides.

The waste is stored in drums, processed in open tanks and eventually recycled or sent to landfill.

But the company also takes sludge and cesspit waste and has been embroiled in legal action since it failed in 1999 to gain permission to discharge gases from waste treatment ponds.

Consents were only partly granted and the company was ordered to stop all discharge of contaminants into the air in the meantime.

The latest conviction was the result of an odour discharge last year from the open-air ponds. The ARC brought the case after neighbouring firms complained.

The company had since agreed to enclose the waste treatment ponds, but counsel for the ARC, Deborah Hollings, told the court it was "disappointing" that the company had refused to clean up its act until it looked likely that air discharge consents would be granted.

Appearing for the company, Paul Cavanagh, QC, said Nuplex Environmental could not commit the estimated $2.5 million to enclose the ponds before it knew whether consents were likely.