A waste recycling company was yesterday given the benefit of the Probation Act but was ordered to pay €20,000 towards the costs of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) prosecuting it for causing a nuisance with smells.
Greenstar was prosecuted by the EPA over odours emanating from its 100,000-tonnes waste-transfer station at Sarsfield Court Industrial Estate at Glanmire, Cork, following complaints from other tenants between February and September 2005.
Yesterday at Cork District Court Judge Con O'Leary said he found Greenstar had shown arrogance when it suggested that Cork City Council and Cork County Council could not implement their waste-management strategies without them.
"I wish it to be marked that the facility cannot continue in breach of the terms of its licence simply because it says 'they cannot do without us', and people in the area have to put up with what you are doing."
Greenstar managing director Walter Kitchen assured the judge the company did not wish to appear arrogant, and said Cork city and county waste-management strategies could operate without the company.
Judge O'Leary accepted the assurance that the company did not think it was above the legislation and applied the Probation Act.
Greenstar solicitor Finola McCarthy had earlier indicated the company had spent €800,000 on technology aimed at eliminating smells. It had declined €1.4 million worth of business in case it made the problem worse.
John Long, of truck and trailer component company Ace, said when the smell was present he and colleagues would eat their lunch at work and not go out. When the smell came into the building, it stayed for hours.
Judge O'Leary said the EPA had made it a condition of Greenstar's licence for the plant that there would be no odour problem beyond its own boundary. "I cannot see how Greenstar can now say that they addressed the issue in a measured way or that the condition is impossible or unreasonable."
