It’s no horror show
AN AUCTION house have called a prank by the street artist Banksy that partially shred a painting just after it was sold a “coup on the art world”. Girl With Balloon sold for £1.04million. It has now been certified by Pest Control, Banksy’s authentication body, and has been given the new title Love Is In The Bin. THE boss of the Scots firm at the centre of the clinical waste scandal yesterday denied his company was a “horror story”.
Garry Pettigrew, chief of Healthcare Environmental Services, said his firm had been “vilified for providing an excellent service”.
He blamed a drop in incineration capacity for the need to store tons of clinical waste – including body parts.
The Lanarkshire firm have been stripped of NHS contracts after waste piled up at their sites, although HES will retain their Scots NHS contracts.
An Environment Agency spokesman said: “HES have significantly and repeatedly breached their environmental permits by storing excess waste at a number of their sites.
“We have taken a range of action with the company but they have continued to BY VIVIENNE AITKEN operate unlawfully. As a result, in addition to our enforcement activity, we have launched a criminal investigation.”
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency also said they issued enforcement notices at sites in Dundee and Shotts last month.
Pettigrew denied suggestions HES had mismanaged services.
He told the BBC: “We have basically got to the point of where we are today where the lack of incineration capacity was just getting worse.
“We have been a success story up until last week and all of a sudden now everyone sees this as being a horror story.
“We feel it’s a horror story but purely because in reality we’ve told the truth and, at the moment, we don’t feel the news is getting out there in the way we’d like it to.”