A man who turned his rented Corio block into an illegal tip for building waste must pay penalties of $19,000, according to the Environment Protection Authority (EPA).
But the EPA said his landlord was now helping with the clean-up as 80 per cent of the waste remained on the block more than two years after an initial clean-up order.
A magistrate fined Mernda’s Ibrahim Ali Ibrahim $10,000 and ordered him to pay costs of $9000 for illegal dumping and failing to comply with the EPA clean-up order for 320 Bacchus Marsh Rd.
The EPA discovered 950 cubic metres of industrial waste on the site, enough to fill about 34 standard-size shipping containers.
The waste was in piles “of various sizes” up to 27 metres across and 2m high, the EPA said.
The court was told Ibrahim ran his business from the rented land … renting out skip bins to builders and landscapers and dumping the waste on the property,” the EPA said.
“He also permitted customers to use their own trucks to dump construction and demolition waste there.”
Ibrahim failed to comply with an order to clean up the site, with an inspection three weeks after his deadline finding the waste “still there”, the EPA said.
“The court convicted Ibrahim and ordered him to remove all industrial waste from the premises, take it to facilities with government-issued environmental approval to receive those wastes, and provide proof to EPA that he had complied with the order.
“The owner of the rented property gave the court a victim impact statement. He has been assisting Mr Ibrahim to clean up the site, which they estimate is now 20 per cent clean.”
