Transformer Bin Hire: ‘Eco-friendly’ skip bin hire company owner fined for illegal dumping

The owner of an “eco-friendly” skip bin hire company priding itself on not taking rubbish to landfill dumped industrial waste at Wyndham and Ballarat.

An “eco-friendly” skip bin hire company owner has been fined after dumping industrial waste at two properties in Wyndham and Ballarat.

Joshua Luke Kostecki, also known as Josh Norris, faced the Horsham Magistrates’ Court earlier this month where he was convicted on three charges of breaching the Environmental Protection Act.

The court heard the Miners Rest man’s business, Transformer Bin Hire, provided skip bin hire services in the Geelong and Ballarat areas.

Australian Securities & Investments Commission records show Transformer Bin Hire Pty Ltd was first registered in November 2019 and was deregistered on January 6, 2021.

The company came to the attention of the Environmental Protection Authority just a month after it was registered, when waste from customers‘ bins was found dumped at a rural address in Lara.

Household waste, tyres, furniture mattresses, piping, carpet, plasterboard, concrete and plastic waste was found among the rubbish.

The EPA issued a notice requiring the company to cease depositing industrial waste at the location and to remove the rubbish by January 17, 2020.

Transformer Bin Hire owner, Joshua Luke Kostecki, was fined $6000 over illegally dumping customers waste at properties in Lara and Werribee. Picture: Facebook/Transformer Bin Hire.

The authority again attended the property between March and April that year, discovering the clean-up order had not been compiled with, and the company had continued receiving waste at the site.

Further dumping was discovered at an address in Werribee in April 2020, with rubbish from five customers in the Geelong area deposited by company trucks at night on April 26 and 27.

Owners of the Werribee property were forced to pay “in excess” of $5000 to have the waste removed.

In court, Kostecki was fined $6000 and ordered to pay costs of $3000 by magistrate Michael McNamara.

Online the company advertises itself as an “eco-friendly‘’ skip bin hire service, boasting they do not dump the waste into landfill.

“We sort all the waste collected from you and recycle or reuse it to minimise the impact on (the) environment,” a statement from the company says.

EPA acting regional manager for Southwest Victoria, Alison Muscroft, described the offending as an attempt to “dump” the cost on the community or land owner.

“This kind of offending is all about avoiding the cost of taking waste to a properly licensed facility for recycling or disposal,” she said.