Smelter incriminates itself by reporting illegal discharge

Pasminco Europe (Smelting), part of the Australian-owned metals group, was fined £1,000 in August for an illegal cadmium discharge from its Avonmouth works. The case was unusual in that the company was prosecuted by the National Rivers Authority (NRA) on the basis of its own sampling, and the offence would probably otherwise have gone undetected.