Staffordshire Wildlife Trust has received a financial boost after the Environment Agency accepted an Enforcement Undertaking offer from Swanline Print Ltd.

• Enforcement Undertaking accepted to address breaches of environmental legislation
• Staffordshire Wildlife Trust receives £14,700 for its Craddock’s Moss project
• The Staffordshire environment to benefit from the Environment Agency’s response to company’s failure to meet packaging recycling obligations

The Staffordshire Wildlife Trust’s Craddock’s Moss project has received a financial boost after the Environment Agency accepted an Enforcement Undertaking (EU) offer from Swanline Print Limited, a company based in Stone, Staffordshire.

The payment is part of an EU offered by the company for its failure to register as a packaging producer and take steps to recover and recycle its packaging waste under the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 2007.   

Swanline Print Limited specialise in being the UK’s leading trade only supplier of bespoke paper-based materials, print and conversion services to the packaging and Point of Sale sectors.

An investigation into potential offences committed by Swanline Print under the Packaging regulations confirmed that the company first became obligated in the 2010 registration year but failed to register until 2021. Since then, the company has registered every year and is now compliant with the regulations. 

The Environment Agency estimated that Swanline Print Limited’s avoided costs for not registering and meeting their obligation for those registration years, as a minimum of £14,659.99 which includes a penalty uplift. The business has now made a financial contribution of £14,700 to Staffordshire Wildlife Trust to ensure that it did not financially benefit from its period of non-compliance.

Jake Richardson, Senior Technical Officer 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.   

The company has also paid the Environment Agency’s administration, investigation and legal costs.   

Further information

The regulations the company did not meet:   

In the years 2010-2020: Regulation 40(1)(a) – a failure to register under the Producer of Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 2007.  

In the years 2010 – 2020: Regulation 40(1)(b) – a failure to recover/recycle under the Producer of Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 2007.   

If a business produces or uses packaging, or sells packaged goods, they may be classed as an obligated packaging producer.  

Companies are an ‘obligated’ packaging producer’ if they (or the UK group of companies they are part of) meet both of the following criteria: 

• handled 50 tonnes of packaging materials or packaging in the previous calendar year 
• have a turnover of more than £2 million a year (based on the last financial year’s accounts) 

 Every year an obligated packaging producer must: 

• register by 7 April either directly with the Environment Agency or through a producer compliance scheme 
• meet their recovery and recycling obligations
• obtain evidence of compliance  
• submit a certificate of compliance by 31 January the following year 

The aim of the Packaging Regulations is to achieve a more sustainable approach to dealing with packaging materials by ensuring that businesses take responsibility for the packaging used in their operations.  This in turn reduces the amount of packaging produced and the material going to landfill.   

Failure to comply with these regulations undermines this purpose, and effects the UK’s ability to meet its recycling targets.  

Evasion of the Regulations impacts on the Environment Agency’s ability to regulate, through the evasion of fees and charges. 

The offences impact upon the industry itself, as the company has been able to trade at a financial advantage compared to its competition. The deadline set by the Regulations allows the Agency to monitor the number of obligated businesses and the tonnages of recycled and recovered packaging waste throughout the previous calendar year. These figures are required to ensure that the UK is meeting its recovery and recycling targets set by the EU Directive on Packaging Waste.  

What is an Enforcement Undertaking?

An Enforcement Undertaking is available to the Environment Agency (EA) as an alternative sanction to prosecution or monetary penalty for dealing with certain environmental offences. It is a legally binding voluntary agreement proposed by a business (or an individual) when the EA has reasonable grounds to suspect that an environmental offence has occurred.  

Enforcement Undertakings for environmental offences were introduced under the Environmental Civil Sanctions (England) Order 2010 and the Environmental Civil Sanctions (Miscellaneous Amendments) (England) Regulations 2010.   

Accepting an Enforcement Undertaking is always at the discretion of the EA but if accepted enables 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.  

 

Why use Enforcement Undertakings? 

• Businesses will voluntarily secure compliance now and in the future, without attracting a criminal record.
• The environment, local community and those directly impacted by the offending can benefit through actions being offered in an EU.
• They allow the EA to deal with the less intentional and polluting offending in a more proportionate way than prosecution through the criminal courts.
• The Environment Agency reserves the right to prosecute, where offenders fail to comply with the terms of an Enforcement Undertaking offer.

Source: The Environment Agency 8th January 2024