Controversial waste firm fined £64k for offences at its own plant that caused a ‘significant’ fire

Martin Shipton

A controversial waste company has been fined £64,000 after pleading guilty to three environmental offences after a significant fire broke out at its own recycling plant.

S L Recycling Ltd, a metal and waste recycling company, appeared at Newport Crown Court in connection with the fire on the Penallta industrial estate in Ystrad Mynach, Caerphilly in September 2021.

The charges brought against the company by the regulator Natural Resources Wales related to:

Failure to manage and operate the activities in accordance with its written Fire Prevention Plan in that it failed to ensure that waste stockpiles were sufficiently separated, were not excessive in volume, and were below 4m high.

Failure to manage and operate the activities in accordance with its written Fire Prevention Plan in that it failed to ensure that a fire quarantine area was available which could hold 50% of the volume of the largest stockpile and with a separation distance of 6 meters from any other waste.

Failure to ensure that operations were undertaken in accordance with the written Environmental Management Plan in that the Company failed to manage and operate the activities such as to identify and minimise any risk of pollution.

These are offences under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016.

Lithium-ion battery

On September 1 2021, a large-scale fire broke out at the S L Recycling plant in Ystrad Mynach Caerphilly, after a lithium-ion battery exploded when a vehicle shell was crushed.

The fire spread to the primary stock pile of scrap metal stored centrally within the yard, leading to approximately 150 tonnes of recycling material including, plastic, foam, electrical items, lead batteries, and gas cylinders to catch fire, alongside machinery.

The blaze was attended by the South Wales Fire and Rescue Service and took until the afternoon of September 2 to bring it under control.

The court heard that the stockpile of waste on the site was excessively large in volume, exceeding the maximum four metres storage height set out in the Fire Prevention Mitigation Plan (FPMP), and breaching the conditions of the environmental permit.

Concerns over the storage height had been raised previously by NRW officers during a site visit on February 4 2021. Mr Stacey Lewis, the sole director of SL Recycling,, was advised that the height of the primary stock pile needed to be reduced to four metres.

The height of the waste made it difficult for firefighters to safely extinguish and segregate the hotspots within the stockpile of waste.

Quarantine area

The FPMP also required the operator to have a designated quarantine area on site, which can be used as a designated location to place affected waste in the event of a fire to ensure it is fully extinguished.

The quarantine area should be large enough to hold at least 50% of the volume of the largest stockpile. At the Penallta site, the area was found to be insufficient to effectively deal with the incident given the volume and size of the waste stockpile.

Due to the volume of water required to manage and extinguish the fire, the site’s drainage inceptor became overwhelmed. This led to contaminated water running off the site, causing large amounts of waste oil to wash through into the local watercourses.

The pollution had a significant effect on the Nant Cylla and River Rhymney Confluence with impacts observed over 2.3km from the site.

These included strong smells of oil and fuel, presence of foam, high levels of suspended solids in the nearby watercourses and staining of the riverbank.

A full biological and fisheries sampling survey carried out by officers from NRW found a total number of 175 dead fish over a 2.3 km stretch of watercourse, including trout and bullhead.

At Newport Crown Court S L Recycling Ltd was fined £64,000 for Count 1, with no separate penalty for Counts 2 and 3. The firm was also ordered to pay £30,000 costs and a victim surcharge of £190.

Serious offence 

David Griffiths, Industry and Waste Team Leader for Natural Resources Wales said: “Environmental regulations are in place for a reason.

“Failure to comply with the legal requirements of an environmental permit is a serious offence that can damage the environment, undermine those who adhere to the rules and cause misery for local communities.

“This case demonstrates what can happen when operators don’t adhere to the conditions of their permits. Their actions to disregard our warnings about the height of the stockpile led to this fire, which ultimately led to significant environmental impacts.

“We welcome the sentence handed down today and hope that it serves as a strong reminder to waste operators that any disregard for environmental regulations will not be tolerated.”

The level of fine for environmental offences is set by the courts and is based on the level of harm, culpability, and the financial means of the defendants.

Toxic waste

In May 2025 SL Recycling was named in a Nation.Cymru article about illegal toxic waste dumping at Wales’ biggest opencast coal mine.

A former worker at Ffos-y-fran near Merthyr Tydfil provided us with an eyewitness report of illegal toxic waste dumping at the site.

There are serious concerns about the failure to restore the land at Ffos-y-fran, despite many millions of pounds in revenue from the coal extracted.

It is believed that the owner, businessman David Lewis – the father of SL Recycling’s Stacey Lewis – is trying to avoid paying for the restoration, the cost of which is estimated at more than £100m.

Earlier this year Mr Lewis was given a police caution after an unprovoked assault on a solicitor in his 70s. He also has a conviction for defrauding a bank of more than £88,000, despite which he was awarded an MBE.

In 2024 the Senedd’s Climate Change, Environment and Infrastructure Committee published a report that described the “epic mismanagement” of the mine, saying nothing similar must be allowed to happen in any community in Wales.

The licence to extract coal from Ffos-y-Fran expired in September 2022 but local residents reported that the mine was still operating – illegally – many months later, before the mine was closed in November 2023.

A former worker alleged that between 2020 and 2023 lorries belonging to SL Recycling (owned by Stacey Lewis – son of David Lewis) were among those that regularly visited the site fully loaded and departed empty.

The worker told us: “SL Recycling runs a scrap yard from the old Rechem site in Cwmbran.I am aware that SL Recycling had a disposal contract with a battery plant in Cwmbran.

“SL Recycling’s lorries would deposit their load in an area of ground at the top of the mine at the rear of a barrel coal wash plant. This waste was later moved to the restoration area of the mine on large dump trucks.

“The dumping area was subsequently covered with overburden material to completely cover the dumped waste.”

At the time we asked Stacey Lewis a series of questions:

Do you know that illegal dumping of waste, especially toxic waste and prohibited material, is a criminal offence?

Did your lorries from SL Recycling regularly visit the Ffos-y-fran mine to offload waste and toxic material for burying for over five years?

Did your father David Lewis give you permission to dump waste and toxic material at the mine?

What exactly did your lorries carry onto the site on a regular basis?

Do you or any company you are connected to own the Rechem site in Pontypool?

If so are you following all the environmental regulatory requirements at the Rechem site following on from the court orders of the previous environmental disaster at that site?

Stacey Lewis did not respond.

Irregularities

Earlier this month we asked further questions about alleged irregularities involving SL Recycling following further information provided by the former worker at Ffos-y-fran.

We received this statement from SL Recycling via the well-known London libel lawyers Carter Ruck: “SL Recycling Ltd strongly denies all allegations contained in the anonymous statement shared by Nation.Cymru. The claims made are wholly false, defamatory, and entirely unsubstantiated.

“SL Recycling Ltd operates in full compliance with all legal, environmental, and regulatory obligations, and we reject the following specific assertions in the strongest possible terms:

“We categorically deny any suggestion that SL Recycling Ltd vehicles have been used for illegal tipping at Ffos y Fran or elsewhere. These claims are entirely false.

“SL Recycling Ltd has never used Ffos y Fran as a tipping site. We understand that the mine is prohibited from such use, and we respect and comply with all site-specific legal restrictions.

“At no time has SL Recycling Ltd conducted, instructed, or condoned the illegal discharge of contaminated water, petrochemicals, or other materials at the Rechem site in Pontypool or any other location.

“There has been no unlawful creation of drainage systems or unauthorised tampering with site boundaries or watercourses by our company or its staff.

“The claim that vehicles were routinely waved through security barriers without checks is incorrect and unsupported by evidence.”