A Laverton North company has been fined $7500 and ordered to pay more than $17,000 in court costs for storing hundreds of drums of industrial waste at an unlicenced site.
Fordex Pty Ltd, operating as Tradepaints, along with its sole director Andrew Duxson, pleaded guilty in Melbourne Magistrates Court last Wednesday to one charge each under the Environment Protection Act of storing prescribed industrial waste without an EPA licence.
The court heard that, in June 2013, it was alleged hundreds of drums and bulk containers containing waste were stored at the company’s Fitzgerald Road site.
EPA inspectors found 50 bulk containers and 400 drums of industrial waste, which were rusting, collapsing, and leaking waste. A subsequent investigation found waste had been accumulating since the early 1990s until 2001.
The company was issued with clean-up notices. Clean-up costs were in excess of $200,000.
