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