SA's first jail sentence for illegal dumping

In a landmark decision for South Australia, a forty year old man has been sentenced to four months and two weeks imprisonment for an environmental offence.

Gabriel Paul Ivanyi was convicted in the state's Environment, Resources and Development Court on 11 counts of illegal waste disposal, and one count of failing to comply with an Environmental Protection Order. He was additionally ordered to pay clean-up costs of $44,000. The imprisonment sentence has been suspended on a two year good behaviour bond.

This is the first time that a custodial sentence has been delivered in South Australia for an environmental offence.

My Ivanyi is the sole director of Adelaide Earth Removal, a company that offers services in site clean-up, site preparation, rubbish removal, demolition and concrete removal. He dumped waste on 26 seperate occassions on vacant land owned by SA Water Corporation, Australian Rail Track Corporation and the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure. The incidents occured over a period of nearly six months, and continued after a police warning. He also failed to comply with an Environment Protection Order requiring him to remove the waste.

AELERT member and EPA Manager Investigations & Tactical Support, Stephen Barry, said that Mr Ivanyi demonstrated a blatant disregard for the Environment Protection Act with a significant cost to the environment, waste disposal business and the general amenity of the dumping sites.

 "These offences also undermined legitimate competitors in the salvage and disposal industry by undercutting their costs through unlawful disposal methods," Mr Barry said.

Mr Ivanyi was previously found guilty in the Port Adelaide Magistrates Court in May 2012, for illegally dumping waste in December 2011 but despite his conviction, continued to illegally dump construction waste.

The investigation timeline

This conviction follows a long and significant investigation by the Environment Protection Authority South Australia.

  • 6 December 2012: EPA Investigator and AELERT Member, Anthony Williams, photographs a truck parked at Mr Ivanyi's home. The truck was full of rubbish including green laminate and timber panels.
  • 7 December 2012: Investigator Williams returns to the residence and witnesses the truck, but with no rubbish inside. He then drives around the surrounding streets looking for illegal dumping. He discovers and photographs piles of demolition waste at a vacant plot, and recognises the laminate that he saw in the truck on the previous day. Subsequent searches of the dump site reveal a piece of wood with a name written on it.
  • In further investigations, EPA Officers discover that the name on the piece of wood belongs to a licenced builder who hired the services of Adelaide Earth Removal. The builder uses the site photos to identify some of the dumped rubbish as originating from his site.
  • Pacific National offers EPA SA footage from their security camera, which captures train movements along a line adjacent to the dumping site. The footage shows a truck depositing waste at the site on a seperate occassion on 9 December 2012.
  • A series of other illegal dumping incidents at the site are investigated in a similar fashion, with staff finding envelopes with names and addresses in the waste, accessing more surveillance footage and gaining eye-witness statements. These investigations tie Mr Ivanyi to the dumping incidents.

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Comment archive

Janice van Reyk

3128 days ago

Well done SA EPA. An important milestone in sending a deterrence message for illegal dumping and environmental offences in general.

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