The former directors of company Ecoverstion Logistics Limited have been convicted and fined for dumping tens of thousands of tyres at sites in the Bay of Plenty.
The Bay of Plenty Council says the three former directors breached two abatement notices, with Alan Merrie and daughter Angela Merrie each being fined $28,500 and Jonathan Spencer fined $21,000.
Senior Regulatory Compliance Officer John Holst says the defendants began stockpiling tyres for a tyre recycling venture before the recycling plant had been established and before the required resource consents had been obtained.
When the defendants' tyre recycling project failed, mountains of used tyres were left sitting at the unconsented sites at Kawerau and Waihi Beach.
"The problem with end of life tyre mountains is over time they leach contaminants that ultimately end up in groundwater. These tyre mountains also present a huge fire risk. A recent tyre fire near Christchurch that had significant effects on the local community involved around 20,000 tyres.
"The Ecoversion venture resulted in the creation of two separate tyre mountains consisting of more than 200,000 tyres so you can imagine the environmental damage if either of these tyre stockpiles had caught on fire," Mr Hoist says.
The three defendants have until 30 April 2018 to remove the remaining tyres from the Kawerau site.
SHARE ME