Mushroom firm fined £50,000

An Evesham mushroom packaging and distribution company has been fined £50,000 and ordered to pay costs of £8,888 for polluting a nearby brook with an effluent from rotting mushrooms. Some frogs and a significant number of invertebrates downstream of the site were killed as a result of the pollution incident.

On investigation, the source of the pollution was found to a skip full of decomposing mushrooms which was leaking into a surface water drain. This, it appeared, had been ongoing for a number of days. The operator was advised to remove the skip, undertake a cleaning operation and conduct a full inspection of the site drainage system.

In effect company failed to carry out the site drainage survey within a reasonable time so Environment Agency staff attended the premises again, to examine the site drainage system, and discovered that similar effluent was continuing to flow into it.