One of Europe's largest paper recyclers, St Regis Paper Company Ltd, was ordered by a court last week to pay nearly £500,000 after committing environmental breaches - including misleading the Environment Agency.

In a case brought by the Environment Agency, Exeter Crown Court was told records were falsified about effluent discharge levels into the Higher Kings Mill leat which connects to the River Culm.

The St Regis Paper Company Ltd, based at Higher Kings Mill in Cullompton, Devon, and the Technical Manager Christopher Steer, were involved in a deception to mislead the Environment Agency.

The company was fined £162,000 after it was convicted of 19 charges under environmental regulations. Judge Bartlett also ordered £225,000 should be paid in confiscation under the Proceeds of Crime Act, and £68,000 in court costs.

Exeter Crown Court heard St Regis Paper Co Ltd operated under a Pollution Prevention and Control permit issued by the Environment Agency. A condition of the permit is that the company monitors its own effluent treatment plant and reports the results to the Agency.

In 2004 the Agency informed St Regis Paper that stricter controls on effluent quality were due to come into force in early 2005 and asked the company to provide a timetable of improvements to its effluent treatment plant to ensure it complied with the new discharge limits.

The company said it had made inquiries with a firm of effluent treatment specialists and been advised that improvements to its treatment system at Higher Kings Mill would cost between £300,000 and £1.2 million. It had decided to put any upgrade on hold and, instead, planned to install an oxygenation system in an attempt to improve the quality of effluent discharged into the River Culm.

In early 2005 the company told the Agency the aeration trial using the oxygenation equipment had achieved ‘positive results.’

Records altered and destroyed

However, between 2005 and late 2007 the Agency noticed that a number of the effluent quality results submitted by St Regis Paper were ‘suspiciously close’ to the permitted limits.

In March 2008 an officer asked to see the company’s daily environmental records sheets and noticed that one had been altered from a value well in excess (100mg/l) of the limit to just below the permitted maximum of 60mg/l.

When an officer asked to see copies of the 2007 record sheets he was told it was not possible because they ‘had been destroyed.’ An effluent sample taken on March 6, 2008 had a Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) level two and a half times above the permitted limit.

The court heard that in order to assist its deception of the Agency, the company installed a freshwater dilution system to dilute effluent with river water before it reached the sampling point. This dilution system was kept secret from the Agency.

St Regis Paper Co Ltd is part of DS Smith PLC, an international company making packaging materials and office products. The parent company has annual turnover of £2 billion with a gross profit of £109 million. Higher Kings Mill makes coloured card for office and educational markets. It is the largest recycler of waste paper in the UK.

‘The deliberate falsifying of records strikes at the cornerstone of our permitting system that is based on self regulation and self monitoring by the Operator,’ said Spence Seaman for the Environment Agency.

‘By presenting the performance of its effluent treatment plant as being better than it was, the company saved a considerable amount of money by not having to carry out major improvement works.’

‘We expect businesses to take their environmental responsibilities seriously and operate in accordance with the strict terms of their permits. If they don't we take action and in serious cases will always seek to prosecute.’