MV Recycling fined over illegal waste exports

If you hear the phrase illegal waste export, it can sound like a paperwork offence with little real-world impact. According to the Environment Agency, this case shows the opposite. Lancashire company MV Recycling (UK) Ltd was sentenced after trying three times in 2019 to send contaminated plastic abroad while describing it as clean recycling. On 5 May 2026 at Preston Magistrates' Court, the company pleaded guilty to three charges and was ordered to pay £30,400 in fines and prosecution costs. For anyone trying to understand how waste crime works, this is a clear example of how ordinary rubbish can be disguised as something much cleaner on paper.

Inspectors did not find neat loads of single-material plastic ready for proper reprocessing. They found bales heavily contaminated with mixed household waste, including nappies and sanitary waste, alongside electrical items such as wiring and circuit boards. The official paperwork described the material as clean, uncontaminated plastic. That description mattered because the company's sole director, Noormohammed Master, was presenting the loads as Green List waste. In simple terms, Green List waste is treated as lower risk and can move under lighter controls. The court heard that MV Recycling had entered into an agreement with companies in Turkey and was trying to export material that did not meet that cleaner standard.

The first offence took place in March 2019. Eleven shipping containers were loaded at a recycling facility in Kent and taken to Felixstowe, where inspections showed the waste was not what the paperwork claimed, so the export was blocked. The key point is not only that officers stopped the load. It is that the Environment Agency then gave the company a warning and clear guidance. That should have ended the matter. Instead, the offending continued. By December 2019, nine more containers bound for Turkey were held back at Felixstowe after further inspections. An Environment Agency officer later said the contamination uncovered during the final offence was the worst he had seen.

When officers opened selected bales, they found even more unwanted material packed inside them, including tin, paper, card, textiles, wood and mixed household waste. That helps explain why waste crime is not just about the wrong label being attached to a load. It is also about whether the waste has been sorted honestly and safely before it is sent anywhere else. The court also heard that MV Recycling did not properly disclose where the waste had come from, and some of it appeared to originate in France. A third party was used to source plastic waste from the same Kent-based company involved in the first offence, before the material was taken to another company in Newcastle for loading into containers. The court heard the Kent company would not have agreed to the deal if it had known the waste was meant for export, because it knew MV Recycling's facility could not sort it to the required standard. Mr Master also accepted that he misled Environment Agency officers about the source of the waste while it was being examined in January 2020.

If Green List and Amber List sound like dry admin language, this is the point where they become real. **What this means:** Green List waste is supposed to be cleaner, lower-risk material. Once waste is mixed with household rubbish, electrical parts or other contaminants, the law may treat it very differently. In this case, the contamination meant the loads should have been classed as Amber List waste. That would have required prior notification to, and consent from, the Environment Agency. It also would have required a financial guarantee in case the country receiving the waste refused it and demanded that it be sent back. Those rules exist so exporters cannot simply move messy, hard-to-manage waste elsewhere and leave other communities to deal with the harm.

There is another part of the story that can look confusing until you slow it down. Businesses use firms like MV Recycling to help fulfil recycling quotas, often through packaging export recovery notes, usually shortened to PERNs. These notes are meant to show that packaging waste has actually been recycled, and they sit inside a wider system where producers are meant to pay towards the waste they create. **Why this matters:** when the paperwork says recycling but the load is badly contaminated, the whole system becomes easier to misuse. That is why the Environment Agency and government have been talking about a tougher response to waste crime. In the source article, the agency says its Ten Point Plan and the wider Waste Crime Action Plan are meant to close loopholes, target poorly performing export sites and use intelligence to stop suspect loads before they leave the UK.

There is some nuance here, and it matters. The court was told that MV Recycling and its director had no previous convictions, cautions or reprimands. The company has since changed its business model, moved premises and, according to Environment Agency checks, has shown no evidence of further offending. That does not erase what happened, but it does help you see how sentencing weighs both the seriousness of the conduct and what follows after it. Joanna Larmour, Deputy Director of the National Environmental Crime Unit, said the case should send a warning to others who ignore waste rules. For the rest of us, the lesson is straightforward: waste crime can hide behind technical terms, but the idea is simple enough to spot. If rubbish is misdescribed as clean recycling, the problem has not been solved. It has just been pushed out of sight, unless inspectors catch it in time.