“A complete disregard for the legislation” was how Joanna Larmour of the National Environmental Crime Unit described the case after MV Recycling (UK) Ltd was sentenced at Preston Magistrates’ Court on 5 May 2026. The Lancashire company pleaded guilty to three offences after trying, on three occasions in 2019, to export plastic waste that was heavily contaminated with household rubbish. The court ordered the firm to pay £30,400 in fines and prosecution costs. What was presented on paperwork as clean plastic for recycling turned out to include the sort of material no community would expect to see shipped abroad as part of a lawful recycling trade, including sanitary waste, nappies and mixed household refuse.

At the centre of the case was the description given for the waste. The company’s sole director, Noormohammed Master, declared that the loads were uncontaminated plastics, known in the trade as “Green List” waste, a lower-risk category that can move with less regulatory control. Environment Agency inspections told a different story. Officers found bales contaminated with household waste and electrical items such as wiring and circuit boards. In plain terms, it was not the clean, sorted material the paperwork claimed, and it could not lawfully be exported under the simpler rules being relied on.

The first offence dated back to March 2019. Eleven containers were loaded at a recycling facility in Kent and taken to Felixstowe for export, where inspections found the contents were not as described and the shipment was stopped. That should have been the point where the message landed. The Environment Agency warned the company and gave clear guidance after the first failed attempt, but the court heard the business carried on regardless, continuing arrangements linked to companies in Turkey.

By the time of the third offence, in December 2019, the scale and quality of the waste had become even more serious. Nine more containers were prepared for export to Turkey and were again held back at Felixstowe after inspection. When officers searched selected bales, they pulled out tin, paper, card, textiles, wood and more mixed waste buried within the plastic. One Environment Agency officer later said it was the worst contaminated material he had seen. For a court in Preston, this was not a technical slip-up or a filing error. It was repeated offending after an earlier warning.

The case also stretched well beyond one yard or one county. The waste had been obtained from other businesses in the UK, with some material appearing to have come from France. A third party sourced plastic waste from the same Kent-based company involved in the first offence, and the loads were then taken to another company in Newcastle for stuffing into shipping containers. That matters because it shows how murky these chains can become when firms are not upfront about where waste is coming from or where it is going. The court heard that the Kent company would not have entered the deal had it known the material was destined for export, particularly given the earlier incident and concerns that the relevant facility could not sort and separate waste to the standard required.

Legally, the contamination changed everything. Waste in that condition should not have been treated as Green List material at all. It should have been classed as “Amber List” waste, which would have required prior notification to, and consent from, the Environment Agency before any export could take place. That stricter route also brings extra financial safeguards in case the receiving country refuses the load and orders it to be sent back. The prosecution said MV Recycling (UK) Ltd tried to sidestep those checks, and that Master misled Environment Agency officers about the source of the waste while it was being examined in January 2020.

There was, the court heard, some mitigation. MV Recycling (UK) Ltd has since changed its business model, moved premises and remained compliant, with no evidence of further offending. The company and its director also had no previous convictions, cautions or reprimands. Even so, the wider point will not be lost on legitimate operators across Lancashire and the North. Waste crime does not just distort a market; it undercuts decent firms, shifts risk onto ports and local communities, and damages confidence in a recycling system many businesses rely on to meet their obligations. Companies use operators like MV Recycling to help secure packaging export recovery notes, so when one part of that chain goes wrong, the fallout goes well beyond a single prosecution. The Environment Agency says this case sits within a tougher national push on waste crime, including its Waste Crime Action Plan and Ten Point Plan aimed at poorly performing sites and suspect exports. For Preston, Lancashire and the wider North, it is a reminder that environmental enforcement is not some distant Whitehall matter. It lands in magistrates’ courts here, it touches trading routes running through places like Newcastle and Felixstowe, and it decides whether recycling is being done properly or just dressed up to look the part.