Warwickshire Wildlife Trust is to benefit by £35,868.12
through an Enforcement Undertaking accepted by the Environment
Agency.
The donation will be used to help environmental studies for the
Tame Valley Wetlands Landscape Partnership based at Hams Hall,
Coleshill, Warwickshire.
This financial contribution is from an Enforcement Undertaking
(EU) offered to the Environment Agency by The Works Stores, a
high street (and online) discount retailer of books, art and
craft materials, gifts, toys, games, whose head office is based
in Coleshill.
The company admitted that between 7 April 2010 and 7 April 2016
it had not been registered as a producer of waste packaging due
to lack of awareness of The Producer Responsibility Obligations
(Packaging Waste) Regulations.
These regulations ensure packaging materials such as cardboard,
plastics and glass are recycled and do not end up in landfill.
Companies with a turnover of £2 million or more and which handle
more than 50 tonnes of packaging per year, must ensure a certain
percentage of waste packaging is recycled.
A spokesperson for the Environment Agency said:
Enforcement Undertakings allow businesses who fail to comply
with legal requirements or pollute the environment to come into
compliance or positively address and restore any harm caused to
the environment and prevent repeat incidents.
The Environment Agency is increasingly using this method of
enforcement for less serious cases to restore and improve the
environment, change behaviour and improve practices of the
offender.
Please report any environmental issues to the Environment
Agency’s 24 hour incident hotline on 0800 80 70 60.
A spokesperson for the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust said:
The money is being used by the Tame Valley Wetlands Landscape
Partnership to deliver a wide range of environmental
activities.
Primarily it will be used to deliver education sessions to
primary school groups about the importance of rivers and
wildlife based at the partnership’s Environment Centre at Hams
Hall.
Some of the funding will also be used to deliver training
sessions to groups in environmental conservation and to support
the willow tit, one of the UK’s rapidly declining native birds.
Funding will help the partnership’s volunteers Tameforce to
undertake tree planting and other activities to improve the
habitat for willow tit.
Notes for editors
Enforcement Undertakings (EUs) enable firms and individuals who
have damaged the environment or operated outside of legislative
requirements to offer to complete actions which will address the
cause and effect of their offending, including making a payment
to an appropriate environmental project.
EUs can be offered for offences including polluting rivers,
breaching permit conditions designed to protect communities, or
failing to register and comply with recycling/recovery
obligations. The Environment Agency then carefully considers
whether the actions offered by the offender are acceptable.
Where the breach does not have a direct impact on the
environment, such as Packaging Waste Regulations offences, EU
offers must contain actions that will protect, restore or enhance
the environment.
Environmental incidents should be reported to the Environment
Agency’s 24 hour incident hotline on 0800 80 70 60.
