Workers made the grisly discovery as they cleared tonnes of material, including human body parts, following the collapse of the company responsible for disposing of it, writes our correspondent, Michael McQuaid.
It is thought the penguin was part of a consignment from Edinburgh Zoo delivered to the facility at Shotts, Lanarkshire.
Healthcare Environmental Services (HES) and its managing director, Garry Pettigrew, 55, face a number of charges, including illegally storing waste at Shotts and another depot in Dundee.
The firm went into liquidation in 2019 after losing NHS contracts in Scotland and England.
More than 200 people worked at the two plants. The company stored and processed waste from every hospital in Scotland.
Court
Hamilton Sheriff Court heard that a company called Cliniwaste stepped in to clean up the Shotts facility after the collapse of HES.
Managing director Peter Wightwick, 38, said the operation took a year and everything, including nearly 90 tonnes of anatomical waste, was incinerated. It cost his company £658,000.
Mr Wightwick said that when his firm arrived in December 2019 the depot was full of bins of waste products, including human body parts.
He told prosecutor Emma Jeffrey: “Pallets of containers were stacked wall to wall. Nearly all the floorspace was covered. We had to squeeze past them. There was no space.
“We were asked to deal with anatomical material first as it was seen as the highest risk material.
“We thought that would all be kept in the freezer – which was also full of bins – but as we dismantled pallets in the depot there were bins of anatomical waste in among them.
“We were finding that type of bin daily. There appeared to be no organised system behind the storage.”
Mr Wightwick said labels showed bins of anatomical waste had lain for more than two years after being collected from hospitals.
He added: “Due to the risk of cross contamination, for example from blood leaking into other containers, it was decided to incinerate everything. It was the safest way.”
Penguin
The dead penguin was seen in one of a series of photographs shown to the witness.
He said: “That’s a penguin carcass, most likely from Edinburgh Zoo. I’m not 100% sure where it was found.”
Mr Wightwick said the waste from Shotts was incinerated at various sites.
He explained: “Since it was older waste – and because of the history of HES – a lot of companies were not willing to deal with it.”
The court also heard that waste was stockpiled at the Dundee depot because there was “nowhere for it go”.
William Robertson, who was the manager there, said anatomical waste was mixed with other materials in lorry trailers.
He said material that could not be treated in Dundee had been transferred to company headquarters in Shotts.
Mr Robertson, 53, told the court: “Waste was going weekly to Shotts to begin with, but latterly that happened less because there was pretty much nowhere for it to go.
“Waste was being stored [in Dundee] that shouldn’t have been. We were instructed to transfer it from 60- and 22-litre tubs and put it in bins as we would get more in the trailers that way.”
Defence
Thomas Ross, defending, has said HES experienced difficulties because of the unavailability of incineration plants in England where waste was usually taken after being processed.
Officers from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) said they made regular visits to the Shotts site over concerns about storage.
An enforcement notice requiring removal of waste was served, but was not complied with before HES went out of business.
The court also heard that SEPA officers went to the Shotts site after requesting the company hand over documents.
They were met by Mr Pettigrew, who told them: “It’s already been shredded. I can give you a bag of shredded paper. That’s it, guys.”
The trial, before Sheriff Liam Murphy, was adjourned until next month.
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