A multi-national paint company has been fined £650,000 and ordered to pay costs of £144,992 following the discharge of hazardous waste from a tank located at a decommissioned paint testing facility on a Devon estuary. Sediment samples taken in 2015 from the estuary and from the tank by the Environment Agency were found to contain tributyltin (TBT), a chemical originally used for anti-fouling of ships but banned since the 1980s, along with other heavy metals. Charges brought were (1) the failure to meet a discharge consent and (2) the release of a controlled waste.

A north-east England chemicals company was fined £800,000 after a worker suffered life-changing injuries in an explosion. The explosion, which occurred on 4 August 2020 also caused significant damage to the building.  An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) identified that the company failed to put sufficient measures in place to control the risk. This included a failure to use a correctly working extraction system to remove the flammable vapours and effective electrical earthing of the bulk bag to prevent the build-up of electrostatic charge that led to the static spark discharging.

A Welsh health board was fined £160,000 after three employees were diagnosed with Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome.  An investigation carried out by the HSE found that employees were required to operate handheld power tools such as lawn mowers, strimmers and hedge cutters without carrying out an assessment of the risks from exposure to vibration. There was no monitoring, or any estimate of exposure to vibration, even though employees, particularly during the summer months, operated handheld power tools for several hours a day. It also found that the health board had ignored requests from its own occupational health department to conduct a risk assessment.