Serial dumper Dib Hanna has been fined $225,000 for illegally dumping 90 tonnes of building waste including asbestos in Picnic Point, in Sydney's south west.
Mr Hanna, of Colyton in western Sydney, pleaded guilty to unlawfully transporting and dumping the waste on private land and in a public park at Henry Lawson Drive on April 5, 2012.
Mr Hanna forced his way through a fence around a vacant block of land and illegally dumped eight piles of building waste consisting of soil and pieces of terracotta piping, brick, concrete, tile, plastic and fragments of chrysotile and amosite asbestos. Each pile was about 10 tonnes in size.
He was caught in the act by a CCTV camera that happened to be installed on a neighbouring property.
That afternoon he dumped another 10 tonnes of waste at a small public reserve owned by Bankstown City Council.
In a judgment handed down on Tuesday in the Land and Environment Court, Chief Justice Brian Preston said Hanna's "persistent and habitual offending" has seen Mr Hanna accrue hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines over the last seven years.
Mr Hanna has been issued with at least 29 penalty notices and prosecuted in courts at least 11 times for offences involving the unlawful transporting and dumping of waste, failing to pay fees for cleaning up waste that he has dumped, failing to comply with requirements made of him in the investigation of unlawful transporting and dumping of waste, or obstructing an authorised officer.
He has also failed to pay the vast majority of the fines imposed by courts.
Mr Hanna told the court as at February 2013 the State Debt Recovery Office issued a statement identifying 41 enforecement orders totaling more than $200,000 he had failed to pay and were overdue relating to illegal dumping.
Under a time-to-pay schedule, he had been ordered to pay $300 a month until June 2072.
The latest fine will be accumulated on top of Mr Hanna's outstanding debts.
Outside the court, Paul Scott from Bankstown Council said Mr Hanna is "one of the worst serial offenders we've ever seen".
Mr Scott said the $225,000 fine is one of the highest handed down in Australia.
He also said that, in response to Mr Hanna's case, laws were enacted to allow serial dumpers to be jailed for their crimes.
"We are calling on the EPA [Environment Protection Authority] now to pursue that particular legislation against Mr Hanna," Mr Scott said.
