Environment Agency v Inglenorth Ltd. Pays/Territoire Royaume-Uni Type de cour Nationale - cour supérieure Date Mar 17, 2009 Source UNEP, InforMEA Nom du tribunal High Court Siège de la cour London Juge May. Numéro de référence [2009] EWHC 670 (Admin) Langue Anglais Sujet Déchets et substances dangereuses, Environnement gén. Mot clé Déchets solides Gaspillage alimentaire Déchets organiques Élimination de déchets Déchets ménagers Déchets industriels Résumé The Environment Agency appealed by way of case stated against a decision of the magistrates' court that the respondent excavation, demolition and recycling company Inglenorth was not guilty of two waste disposal offences. It had been contracted to collect materials from one garden centre and take them to another. When it collected the materials, the garden centres owner informed them that he intended to use them to make good a car park at his other site. The owner did not have a waste management licence. Two informations were laid against Inglenorth for failure to comply with the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (“the EPA 1990”) s.34(1)(a), by failing to inform the owner of the need to hold a waste management licence in order to deposit waste on his site, and for depositing waste at the garden centre when there was no waste management licence in force The EA alleged that the Magistrates had erred in law in considering whether the materials were waste. In particular the EA alleged that the Magistrates had erred in interpreting “discard” narrowly to mean “get rid of” and in considering that the intention to re-use material must be immediate for it not to be classed as waste where as the real issue was whether the proposed reuse was immediate. The Divisional Court said: “The question which this case stated by the Stockport Justices of 28th November 2007 raises is exemplified in most respects by the following example: if I get a lorry driver to deliver hardcore from a demolition site to my drive when I am going to use the hardcore to mend my drive, or it may be as a subbase for a concrete slab in the garage that I am constructing, is the hardcore as delivered to me waste and do I need a licence to receive it and does the lorry driver commit an offence by delivering it when I have no licence and does he have to warn me about the need for having a licence … The common sense answer reached by the Justices is that it was not because the hardcore is material which I am going to use, not material which I am going to discard. I am not going to discard it, I am not going to throw it away or get rid of it.” On the issue of the need for reuse being immediate the Divisional Court said: “No doubt questions might arise as to whether a use of deposited material for purposes such as building works was to be immediate. … immediate use cannot be taken literally. As for example, if material is deposited at a site intending it to be used straight away for building operations, if it is not used straight away because, for instance, the weather is bad and prevents building operations; or other and different material is required to be delivered first before this material can be used; or machinery has to be brought on to the site before it can be used and there is some delay before it is brought to the site; any of these examples would not, depending on the facts, prevent the material from being reused immediately, if that is the expression that needs to be addressed. The distinction in my judgment must be between depositing the material for storage pending proposed reuse and depositing it for use more or less straight away without it being, in any sensible use of the word, stored. Depending always on the facts, hardcore which is going to be used next week for current building operations is not being stored”. The magistrates found the defendants not guilty on the basis that the material was not 'waste' as defined by the 'Waste Framework Directive' and s.75 (2) EPA. Under this legislation, 'waste' is defined as any substance or object in the (non-exhaustive) categories set out in the (schedules to the EPA) which the holder discards or intends to discard or is required to discard, tha appeal was dismissed. Texte intégral COU-156628.pdf