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Waste company prosecuted for operating without an environmental permit

By Mark Mansfield
Endurmeta Ltd's site in Sandycroft

Natural Resources Wales (NRW) has successfully prosecuted a waste company and its director after it operated unlawfully for more than a year and a legal notice to clear the site was ignored.

At Mold Magistrates’ Court on 16 December, Endurmeta Ltd and its director, Ian Glasbrook, pleaded guilty to operating a waste site without an environmental permit and failing to comply with a statutory notice requiring waste to be removed.

Mr Glasbrook was fined £3,077, ordered to pay £7,687 in prosecution costs and a victim surcharge, and disqualified from acting as a company director for three years from 29 April 2026. The court also imposed a remediation order requiring both Mr Glasbrook and Endurmeta Ltd to remove all remaining waste from the site by that date.

Endurmeta Ltd was separately fined £3,350 and ordered to pay a victim surcharge.

The prosecution relates to a waste treatment site operated by Endurmeta Ltd at Deva Industrial Estate in Sandycroft between August 2023 and February 2025.

The company was handling waste materials including carpets, mattresses and printer cartridges under waste exemptions, which allow certain low-risk waste activities to take place without a full environmental permit.

However, NRW officers found that the site was not secure and that waste was being stored for longer than permitted under the exemption rules.

These breaches meant the operation no longer qualified for exemptions, leading NRW to cancel them and issue a legal notice under Section 59 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

The notice required the company to remove the waste from the site, but NRW found that Endurmeta Ltd failed to comply. At the time of the court hearing, most of the waste remained in place.

Compliance

Carys Williams, Waste Regulation and Enforcement Team Leader at NRW, said the case highlighted the importance of compliance with environmental regulations.

“Waste exemptions are designed to allow low-risk activities to operate without a permit, but only when all conditions are fully met,” she said. “Failure to comply can put the environment and human health at risk, as well as undermining legitimate businesses that invest in operating responsibly.”

She added that NRW would continue to monitor the site to ensure the court-ordered clean-up is completed.

“Our officers will ensure that the remaining waste is removed in line with the remediation order,” she said. “We will not hesitate to take enforcement action where operators ignore their legal responsibilities.”

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2 comments

Erisian

Please keep a close eye on this story and follow up. Maybe I'm just a grumpy old cynic but I'm betting next thing we hear will be that the company has gone into liquidation and someone else will have to pay the clean-up costs. It won't be the first or last time. Probably time we updated the old adage - "Where there's muck, there's dodgy buggers"

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Y Cymro

Good to hear that environment vandal Endurmeta Ltd were prosecuted their by NRW, although the sum director Ian Glasbrook was fined is peanuts with the pollution caused. What should happen if he refuses to clean up properly the site should be jailed and have his company shut down and assets seized. Pity those Conservative ministers in government at Westminster in 1966 responsible for overseeing NCB (National Coal Board) with the Aberfan disaster never faced similar justice for the unlawful killing 116 children and 28 adults. But it shows you when the British state and establishment are responsible those ministers culpable always evade justice for their crimes. Let's hope similar will happen to those eco scumbags Merthyr (South Wales (Ltd) who with the Ffos-y-Fran opencast mine who not only wrecked further an already abused landscape, made locals lives a living hell, illegally mined when its license ended, but also reneged on a promise to restore the land leaving it to become a toxic slurry pool slowly festering. Sadly the Welsh Labour lapdogs we were powerless or unwilling to act. This must never happen again and why we need control over policing and our criminal justice system from our Whitehall abuser. A Plaid Welsh Government in power will not bend over like our Welsh Labour lapdogs. They will stand tall not crawl. Also a thing to ponder all. Remember that Nigel Farage and Reform UK have stated they want to reindustrialise Wales by opening up new & old mines. This means more opencast mines on a similar scale as Ffos-y-Fran. Worse still. Reform if in power seeing their anti-devolution agenda will try to repatriate powers back to like-minded anti-Wales UK Labour. So be forewarned those willing to self-harm that who live beneath future would-be Aberfans. You are next! There's will be a future Reform/Conservative coalition government at Westminster after this toxic Tory UK Labour lose the next general election if the polls continue on their downward spiral. It's a cert a ConForm Westminster government, like Blue Labour before them, will interfere again in matters devolved to Wales. They will try to bypass the Plaid Cymru Welsh Government in Cardiff. Then later attempt to abolish our Senedd Cymru without a vote. Farage has implied so. He, Farage, said said that only Whitehall had the power to abolish our Senedd Cymru. A ConForm government at Westminster would. And if they achieve their undemocratic goal, will use and abuse Wales into submission like Geoffrey Epstein did minors on his island. Back to the bad old days where we had no voice. No power. No hope. Poverty rules. This is our future with direct rule.

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