Big fines for tyre pile
A father and daughter team, paid $280,000 by Hamilton City Council to dispose of tyres, have been found guilty of environmental breaches for the same tyres.
Directors of Ecoversion Limited, Alan George Merrie, Angela Kay Merrie and Jonathan Lindsay Spencer, have been collectively fined
$78,000 after Bay of Plenty Regional Council pressed charges against the trio for contravening abatement notices to stop stacking tyres at multiple sites.
The saga began in 2015 when Hamilton City Council contracted Ecoversion to remove 150,000 dumped at a Frankton property after a business tasked with disposing of them went bust.
But EcoVersion quickly struck trouble too. It was barred from the property it leases from the Kawerau District Council, which was worried about Ecoversion’s ability to deal with the growing pile of tyres from Hamilton and elsewhere.
Hamilton city councillor Dave Macpherson said due diligence was not followed when council selected Ecoversion.
‘‘We just paid them and washed our hands of the problem,’’ he said. ‘‘We just exported our tyre problem to other parts of the North Island.’’
Ecoversion, incorporated as Kawerau Tyre Storage Limited had planned to establish a tyre recycling service in Kawerau.
The plant was touted to bring employment to Kawerau and was supported in part by Kawarau District Council which leased a site for tyre storage.
A bond of $250,000 secured the lease and there were strict milestones for resource consents, procuring equipment and installing a tyre shredder. About 1200 tonnes of tyres were stored on site but no milestones were ever met.
On April 7, 2015, Kawerau Tyre Storage executed a contract with Hamilton City Council to remove
150,000 tyres from a failed Frankton tyre storage venture.
They were paid $286,235 for their services but they were blocked from storing the tyres at the Kawerau site.
‘‘We didn’t do proper due diligence and if we had it would have revealed this group had been struck off from other companies,’’ Macpherson said.
‘‘They pulled the wool over our eyes. I think the real lesson here is not to be taken in by flash presentations and do some more research into the background.’’
As the tyre mountain grew with no sign of processing equipment, Bay of Plenty Regional Council issued abatement notices ordering all tyres to be removed by November 2015. Tyres pose a serious fire and water contamination risk.
The last of the tyres were said to have been removed on the eve of the company directors September 2017 court date with many being moved to another Kawerau address about 2 kilometres down the road from Spencer Ave.
In his ruling Judge Kirkpatrick said, as well as the fines, the remaining tyres must also be removed in a suitable manner. BOPRC has been granted power to remove the tyre and invoice the directors any costs.
While the Ecoversion directors have been fined a total of $78,000, a range of contractors have also been left out of pocket.
A trucking contractor hired to move the tyres from Hamilton to Kawerau is $32,000 short after Ecoversion stopped paying.
‘‘We got involved with them as a bit of a feel-good story,’’ the contractor who asked not to be named said.
‘‘It started off all right but then we didn’t get paid and I knew something was up. They were giving us excuses like we were not invoicing the right company but I stopped trading with them. I’ve still got piles of their tyres lying around and it will cost me $20,000 to dump them.’’
BOPRC senior regulatory compliance officer John Holst said thousands of tyres remained at the Kawerau site and the Merries had until the end of April to shift them.
‘‘What happened with the Ecoversion tyres in the Bay of Plenty is repeating itself around the country. One of the priorities of the current government is to establish a tyre stewardship fund. This is the solution New Zealand requires, as it would build the true lifecycle cost of tyres into the purchase price, and remove the incentive to simply stockpile large tyre stockpiles.’’