A BOOK distribution company was fined £30,000 on Wednesday for failing to recover and recycle tonnes of packaging waste over a nine-year period.

Bicester Magistrates Court found Baker&Taylor - formerly Advanced Marketing UK and Aura Books - guilty of not recovering and recycling more than 1,900 tonnes of packaging waste between 1997 and 2006.

The Bicester-based company was ordered to pay £1,080 in costs to The Environment Agency and an additional £8,354 compensation of lost registration fees.

The Environment Agency wrote to Baker&Taylor in 2005 as part of a routine compliance check, where they found that Baker&Taylor's annual turnover to be £32m and that they handled about 244 tonnes of packaging.

Under the Producer Responsibilities Obligations, any company that handles more than 50 tonnes of packaging and has a turnover greater than £2m must be registered with the Environment Agency or a compliance scheme.

Baker&Taylor was not registered and saved about £13,123 in costs and £8,354 in registration fees.

Environment officer Sue Gebbels said: "We are grateful to Baker&Taylor for their co-operation with our investigations and the steps they took to ensure future compliance with the regulations. However, the money raised from compliance with this legislation goes directly to the recycling industry.

"The failure by this company to ensure they met their responsibilities, means that over these years there was less investment in the recycling industry than there should have been."