Hair-raising £2k fine for West Yorkshire hairdressers over waste

Carl Deacey, manager at Arena Hair Studio, Wetherby, also admitted providing a fake receipt for waste disposal after being required to produce documentation.

He was fined a total of £2,000 and ordered to pay £523 costs and a £100 victim surcharge when he appeared before Leeds Magistrates’ Court.

Environmental action officers from Leeds City Council visited the salon after receiving complaints in August 2015 that business waste from the firm was being put into public litter bins in the town centre.

Officers served a legal notice requiring Deacey produce documentation to show what arrangements were in place to dispose of waste and he provided a receipt for the removal of waste.

However further investigations found Deacey had paid someone to produce a fake receipt for waste disposal.

He admitted that the business has never had any legal means of disposing of their waste throughout their 35 years of operation, an offence under the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

Magistrates said he was potentially putting the public at risk by placing hazardous waste into public bins, a claim Deacey denied, and said forging documentation was a very serious matter.

Speaking after the case, Deacey said he should not have provided the faked receipt but that the waste in question was takeaway coffee cups.

“I do feel that the fine was fairly severe, all I have done is put a bit of waste in the wrong bin,” he said.

“I did not harm anybody. I didn’t put any harmful products in any bin.”