Waste Management has been fined $450,000 and must pay $360,000 in reparations after a worker died in a "fatal gas chamber" of chemical waste in 2017.
Jim Gideon died after being overcome by hydrogen sulphide gas from a treatment pit in Seaview, Lower Hutt, in August 2017.
Gideon had been told to treat hazardous waste from the Haywards substation by mixing reactive chemicals.
However, the waste had sat unmarked at the site for six months.
It also had not been officially recorded, tested or labelled by the site's chemist.
WorkSafe said a destruction certificate had been issued even though the waste hadn't actually been destroyed.
On the day of Gideon's death, the hydrogen sulphide alarm had repeatedly gone off, but work continued.
Gideon collapsed in the afternoon after being exposed to around 500 parts per million of hydrogen sulphide - the maximum exposure allowed is 10 parts per million over eight hours.
WorkSafe said its investigation had uncovered health and safety failures at every level. This included improper storage and hazard identification, a lack of PPE and inadequate risk assessment.
"Jim Gideon's death was completely unnecessary and avoidable," WorkSafe's national manager of investigations Hayden Mander said.
"It's only by luck that there were not multiple fatalities at Seaview that day," he said.
"Exposing workers to this degree of danger is unacceptable to WorkSafe, and negligent in the extreme. Waste Management's failure on so many levels is appalling."
In July last year, Waste Management's managing director Evan Maehl wrote in an email to staff that Gideon's death was "tragic and avoidable".
Maehl said Gideon had been a valued member of the team for nine years.
"As we have previously expressed to the people most closely affected, we were shocked by his death. We deeply regret the loss of Jim and unreservedly apologise for the pain caused to his family and loved ones. Our thoughts continue to be with them."
Waste Management was sentenced on charges of exposing an individual to risk of death or serious injury or serious illness. The maximum penalty is a fine of up to $1.5 million.
At sentencing in the Wellington District Court, Judge Bruce Davidson said a "wholesale systemic failure" had led to the creation of a "fatal gas chamber" at the facility.
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