THE owner of an East Cornwall scrapyard has been ordered to pay £4,494 in fines and costs for illegally burning waste, including old tyres on Bonfire Night. The case was brought by the Environment Agency.

A member of the public complained to the agency after seeing a large plume of  'thick black smoke' billowing from Rundle's Scrap Yard in Kelly Bray on November 5.

When an agency officer visited the site she saw a large area of burnt ground in a field adjacent to the scrapyard. A digger machine was working nearby alongside two skips, one of which contained burnt metal and tyre rims.

When asked about the bonfire, Mrs Janet Rundle, replied: 'It was Bonfire Night. What do you expect?' Inspecting the scrapyard, the officer found a 'huge pile' of burnt-out tyre rims. She suspected they had been brought back into the yard from the area around the bonfire.

The defendant said she had invited some children around to watch the fire as part of Bonfire Night celebrations. She had burnt an old caravan, some waste wood and a few tyres.

Rundle's Scrapyard holds an Environment Agency waste management permit and is registered as a metal recycling facility.

Magistrates heard there had been previous incidents at the site relating to burning, illegal waste disposal and pollution.

The bonfire was seen by three independent witnesses, one of whom noticed billowing black smoke coming from the site as he was walking with two of his children and a friend to a firework display at Callington College. They did not see any fireworks at the scrapyard.

Clarissa Newell for the Environment Agency said: 'This was an attempt to dispose of waste on Guy Fawkes Night. Smoke from burning tyres poses a risk to human health and the environment and is prohibited under the terms of this site's waste permit.

The defendant would have saved on disposal costs and would therefore have gained financially by getting rid of these tyres on a bonfire.'

Appearing before Bodmin magistrates last Wednesday, Mrs Rundle was fined £2,000 and ordered to pay £2,479 costs after pleading guilty to disposing of controlled waste in a manner likely to cause pollution of the environment or harm human health and failing to comply with the conditions of an environmental permit.

These are both offences under the Environmental Protection Act 1990. She was also ordered to pay a £15 victim surcharge.