A FIREWORKS company has been fined more than £7,000 after its products were found to contain a potentially cancer-causing chemical.
Echo 2 limited, who are based in Cold Meece, was found to have broken European rules on the use of hexachlorobenzene (HCB).
The company imported fireworks which contained the organic compound - which has been banned globally under the Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants - from Shaghai.
And following a case at Stafford Magistrates last Wedensday, they became the first company in England and Wales to be prosecuted for holding large stocks of the substance.
An Environment Agency spokesman said: “This is the first company to be prosecuted for importing fireworks containing HCB. This chemical can harm the environment if fireworks containing it do not burn completely or if they burn at a low temperature. "It is fortunate that, in this case, the fireworks were not passed on to the public. We take cases like this very seriously and we will not hesitate to prosecute where we feel it is warranted.” Echo 2 - who buy fireworks in bulk to sell on to smaller retailers - pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to one charge of importing 4,800 fireworks containing HCB. Officials from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found the substance inside Devil’s Wrath and Devil’s Desire display fireworks They also found documentation which proved 400 cartons of the banned products had arrived at Felixstowe from Shanghai on July 19, 2009.
However, the court heard the fireworks had now been destroyed by high temperature incineration in July 2010 and there was no evidence to suggest they were ever passed on to retailers for sale. In mitigation, Echo 2 said they thought the HSE checked all the consignments. They have also now employed someone to check all the fireworks.
