1    Shortly after 6.27pm on 7 June 2017, a fire broke out at the premises of a general waste collection business at 6 Tuas South Street 8, Singapore 637003. The premises were occupied by the plaintiff, Greenway Environmental Waste Management Pte. Ltd. (“plaintiff”). Approximately 11 minutes later at or shortly before 6.38pm, the fire (or a series of fires) culminated in a large explosion. Subsequent investigations into the cause of the fires and explosion determined that the most likely origin or source of the fires was the presence of a significant quantity of unfinished and unsealed cylindrical-shaped lithium batteries (“Lithium Batteries”). ¹  The source of the Lithium Batteries, and in particular whether they originated from the defendant, Cramoil Singapore Pte Ltd, were among a number of hotly contested issues in this case.

3    The fires and resultant explosion caused damage to the Plaintiff’s Premises necessitating, inter alia, cleaning and restoration work and the incurrence of various costs and expenses to make good the damage caused. Fortunately, there was no loss of life or personal injuries. The cost and expense incurred amounted in total to S$579,641.50 (“Claim Amount”). The Claim Amount has been paid to the plaintiff by the plaintiff’s insurer Great Eastern Insurance Limited (“Great Eastern”). ²  The present action has been brought by Great Eastern in the name of the plaintiff pursuant to Great Eastern’s rights of subrogation. The quantum of damages sought by the plaintiff, as represented by the Claim Amount, is not disputed by the defendant. ³  The real contest in this case is on liability.

4    The plaintiff is a company incorporated in Singapore. At all material times, the plaintiff was in the business of providing general waste collection and recycling services. ⁴  The plaintiff is, and was at all material times, licensed by the National Environmental Agency (“NEA”) as a General Waste Collector for general wastes classified under Class A and Class B. ⁵  Class A general wastes includes wastes such as “unwanted furniture, electrical appliances, construction and renovation debris, cut trunks and branches, bulky waste, and recyclable waste (excluding food waste)” while Class B general wastes include “domestic refuse, food waste (excluding cooking oil) and market waste and wastes which are degradable”. ⁶  It is common ground that the plaintiff is not, and was not at the material time, a licenced Toxic Industrial Waste collector. ⁷  For completeness, the plaintiff is also not licenced to collect Class C general wastes which would include sludge from water or sewage treatment plants, grease interceptors or waste from sanitary conveniences in ships and aircraft. ⁸  

5    The defendant is a company incorporated in Singapore. At all material times, the defendant was a licensed Toxic Industrial Waste collector and “commonly handles” hazardous substances. ⁹  The defendant’s licence as a Toxic Industrial Waste collector, in turn, allows the defendant to only store, reprocess, use, treat, or dispose of such industrial wastes at the Defendant’s Premises. ¹⁰  The defendant is also in the business of, among others, manufacturing and processing chemicals and recycling non-metal waste. ¹¹  Even though the defendant is also licenced to dispose of general wastes, the defendant “focus[es] its resources on its core business of collecting and disposing of toxic or hazardous waste” as a matter of business strategy and as such “decided to outsource the disposal of the general wastes found in the wastes which [the defendant] collected from its customers and the general wastes which [the defendant] itself generated at its premises”. ¹²  The defendant thus outsourced its general waste disposal operations to the plaintiff. As a result, the defendant was at the material time in June 2017, one of the plaintiff’s customers.

6    Since about 2004, and pursuant to an oral agreement between the parties, the plaintiff has been rendering services to the defendant for the collection, processing (if necessary) and disposing of wastes in consideration of payment (“Agreement”). ¹³  During the course of the parties’ business relationship, the plaintiff extended copies of the plaintiff’s General Waste Collector’s Licence to the defendant on at least three occasions. ¹⁴  At all material times, the defendant was aware that the plaintiff is not a licenced Toxic Industrial Waste collector. ¹⁵  

7    As part of the Agreement, the plaintiff would deploy a skip bin at 4 Tuas View Lane, Singapore 637750 (“Defendant’s Premises”) for the defendant to discard general waste into it. ¹⁶  One of the factual issues in contention in this case is whether a specific skip bin was always deployed by the plaintiff to the Defendant’s Premises and I shall return to that issue later.  

8    On 7 June 2017 (the day of the incident), Mr Tan Kim Seng, the defendant’s managing director, called and spoke to Mr Lee Cheng Wah, the plaintiff’s managing director, over the telephone and requested the plaintiff to collect the skip bin containing waste from the defendant’s premises. ¹⁷  

9    The plaintiff’s lorry bearing licence plate XE 1524M (“Lorry”) arrived at the Defendant’s Premises some time after 6.00pm on 7 June 2017, collected the skip bin from the Defendant’s Premises and arrived at the Plaintiff’s Premises at around 6.20pm. ¹⁸  The journey from the Defendant’s Premises to the Plaintiff’s Premises is a short one and takes no more than fifteen minutes.

10    The Lorry was fitted with a Global Positioning System (“GPS”) that enabled the Lorry’s historical track data to be retrieved. ¹⁹  There was a six-minute difference between the time as shown on the Lorry’s GPS track data and the timestamp on the plaintiff’s closed-circuit television (“CCTV”) recordings; this difference was considered to be “inherent and not manipulated”. ²⁰  Mr Cai Jielun (“Mr Cai”), the plaintiff’s operations manager, explained that the “time shown on the CCTV footages is usually not accurate due to power trips at the Plaintiff’s Premises from time to time”. ²¹  This discrepancy between real time and the CCTV footage timing was accepted by the defendant’s expert witness, Ms Lim Chin Chin (“Ms Lim”), ²²  and was also not seriously pursued by the defendant at trial or in its written closing and reply submissions. The CCTV footage showed that the Lorry unloaded the contents of a skip bin marked “A10” (“Skip Bin A10”) at the waste sorting yard (“Sorting Yard”) of the Plaintiff’s Premises from about 6.22pm (ie, 18:16 hours CCTV time) to about 6.23pm (ie, 18:17 hours CCTV time). ²³

11    The waste unloaded from Skip Bin A10 included, inter alia, numerous light-coloured opaque packages. The waste unloaded also included large items such as a washing machine and some brown-coloured material that resembled soil. ²⁴  As it turned out, the light-coloured packages contained “large” ²⁵  or “substantial” ²⁶  quantities of “unfinished and unsealed” lithium batteries. To be clear, an “unfinished” battery refers to a cylindrical-shaped object which lacks the outer metal casing while an “unsealed” battery refers to a battery which lacks metal caps at either end.  ²⁷  The Lithium Batteries would contain a cathode, an anode and insulating layers or foils (containing lithium) rolled together in a cylindrical shape so as to form what is termed a “jelly roll”. ²⁸  As an aside, any finished batteries would have been in the form of cylindrical lithium batteries, similar to those widely available to consumers as AA or AAA sized lithium batteries. As a visual aid, I reproduce at Annex 1 of this judgment photographs of samples of the Lithium Batteries found at the Plaintiff’s Premises. 

12    It is common ground that the Lithium Batteries would be considered toxic industrial waste and/or hazardous substances and which would not fall within Class A or Class B general wastes. ²⁹  This is primarily because the metal lithium (labelled as “Li” in the periodic table) is extremely flammable and highly reactive to water. It is also not disputed that hazardous substances must be transported in accordance with Part II of the Environmental Protection and Management (Hazardous Substances) Regulations (Cap 94A, Rg 4, 2008 Rev Ed). ³⁰  The collection of toxic industrial waste is likewise strictly regulated and must be undertaken by a licenced Toxic Industrial Waste collector after receiving information from its customers on the toxic industrial waste under Part III of the Environmental Public Health (Toxic Industrial Waste) Regulations (Cap 95, Rg 12, 2000 Rev Ed) (the “Regulations on Toxic Industrial Waste”).

13    Additionally, not all general wastes falling within the same class can be disposed of in the same manner. Some general wastes are non-incinerable and hence cannot be disposed of at an NEA incineration plant. ³¹  Whether general wastes are ultimately disposed of at an NEA incineration plant depends on, inter alia, the size of such waste. Under the Third Schedule to the Environmental Public Health (General Waste Collection) Regulations (Cap 95, Rg 12, 2000 Rev Ed) (the “Regulations on General Waste Collection”), certain types of general wastes such as bulky items (ie, any “solid object exceeding 0.6 m in length or width or 0.1 m in thickness” and any “hollow object exceeding 0.6 m in length, width or height”) or large electrical appliances (eg, “washing machines, refrigerators and air-conditioning units”) are considered non-incinerable and hence cannot be disposed of at NEA incineration plants. 

14    For completeness, the plaintiff also rendered services to the defendant for the collection and disposal of ash generated by the defendant from its own waste disposal/incineration activities. The defendant’s ash wastes would be disposed into a different skip bin because the ash would be “sent to another location” (ie, the Pulau Semakau landfill) and not the NEA incineration plant. ³²  That skip bin, according to the plaintiff and which was not contested by the defendant, was labelled “B” ³³  (whereas the plaintiff contends that Skip Bin A10 was deployed exclusively at the Defendant’s Premises for the disposal of general waste at the material time ³⁴ ). The skip bin provided by the plaintiff for the defendant’s disposal of ash wastes is not the subject matter of the present dispute. 

15    After a careful review of the CCTV footage, I have tabulated below a timeline of the key events that occurred after the contents of Skip Bin A10 were unloaded onto the floor of the Sorting Yard at the Premises at about 6.23pm (ie, 18:17 hours CCTV time). ³⁵  As the CCTV timestamps are represented in the 24-hour clock format, I have used the same format.

16    As a point of clarification, whilst in the tabulation above I have referred to fires F1 to F6, the parties’ experts disagree on whether there were six fires, as the defendant’s expert contends, or only one fire as the plaintiff’s expert contends. The plaintiff’s expert’s disagreement is on the basis that the “spots of fires on the waste piles in the sorting area were not new fires. They were the result of fire spread from the initial fire”. ³⁶  The respective expert witnesses do not dispute that some of the “spots of fires” were the result of “fire spread”. This is unsurprising since the material events at the Sorting Yard are recorded by the plaintiff’s CCTV. Hence, in substance, the respective expert witnesses are describing the same series of events. In any case, in my view, the difference is of no material significance to the issues in the present case. ³⁷

18    From the CCTV footage as summarised above, several of the earlier fires, namely F1 to F3, appear to have been successfully extinguished by the plaintiff’s own firefighting efforts. It is also undisputed that the Plaintiff’s Premises were fitted with a water mist system; this system, when activated, sprays water mist downwards from the ceiling of the Sorting Yard to reduce dust generated from the waste sorting operations. It is not in dispute, and is quite apparent from the CCTV footage, that the plaintiff’s water mist system was activated at the Sorting Yard in the course of the plaintiff’s firefighting efforts as one of the firefighting measures the plaintiff undertook. According to the Fire Investigation Report of the Singapore Civil Defence Force (“SCDF”), the water mist system was activated at about 6:37:11pm. ³⁹  Ms Lim, on the other hand, notes that the water mist system was activated at about 18:34:37. This is, however, not a material difference and none of the issues in the present case turns on precisely what time the water mist system was activated. For purposes of my decision and having reviewed the CCTV recordings, I estimate that the water mist system was activated at about 6.35pm, approximately three minutes before the large explosion referred to at S/No. 22 in the tabulation of key events at [15] above.

19    Mr Cai called the SCDF at about 6.40pm. The first SCDF firefighting unit arrived at the Plaintiff’s Premises some five minutes and 37 seconds after the call. Five fire engines and other rescue vehicles were subsequently dispatched as reinforcement. ⁴⁰  Using water and foam to fight the fire, ⁴¹  the SCDF managed to bring the fire under control at about 10pm. Damping down operations continued until the following morning. ⁴²  

20    In its investigations, the SCDF observed burnt “remnants of cylindrical objects among the pile of waste” and similar cylindrical objects “at multiple points across the floor” of the Sorting Yard. Several unaffected light-coloured packages were recovered and submitted to the Forensic Chemistry and Physics Laboratory of the Health Sciences Authority (the “HSA”) for chemical analysis. ⁴³  Photographs of the unaffected light-coloured packages show that the packages were labelled. The labels on those packages indicate that there were at least four types of unfinished and unsealed lithium batteries present at the Plaintiff’s Premises. Photographs of the four differently labelled packages are at Annexures 3 and 4 respectively of this judgment. ⁴⁴  To appreciate the number of light-coloured packages containing the Lithium Batteries that were unloaded from Skip Bin A10 on the day in question, I have reproduced, at Annex 5 of this judgment, two screenshots from the CCTV footage at approximately 6.23pm (from Camera 2) and approximately 6.24pm (from Camera 13). It is not disputed that these light-coloured packages were among the last of the contents unloaded from Skip Bin A10 onto the floor of the Sorting Yard. 

21    During the clean-up efforts after the incident, “hundreds of batteries” were found “on the floor at many parts of the Plaintiff’s Premises including the workshop, the weighbridge area and the open area beside the weighbridge”. ⁴⁵  The plaintiff was required by the authorities to “dispose of the batteries found at the Plaintiff’s Premises” after the fire and requested the defendant to “provide a quotation to dispose of such batteries”, which the defendant did. ⁴⁶  In an invoice from the defendant dated 15 August 2017 and received by the plaintiff on 21 August 2017, the defendant invoiced the plaintiff a sum of $139.10 for the “DISPOSAL OF SOLID WASTE (WASTE BATTERY)” amounting to “200.00KGS”. ⁴⁷  The defendant did collect the Lithium Batteries from the plaintiff and disposed of them on or about 21 August 2017. According to the defendant, it treated these batteries as used or exhausted batteries which it could collect and dispose of as toxic waste, as opposed to lithium batteries which it was not licenced to collect. ⁴⁸

22    In its report, the SCDF concluded that the “general waste materials usually collected by the company, such as wood, paper and plastics were unlikely to create such effects as the ignition fuel, as they do not support spontaneous combustion”. The fuel for the fire was the “cylindrical objects containing lithium” and there were “no other possible ignition sources at the determined area of fire origin”. ⁴⁹  The defendant’s expert, Ms Lim (a chemist and forensic scientist), opined that “the unsealed lithium batteries and bare jelly rolls” found at the Sorting Yard posed “significant fire and explosion hazards.” ⁵⁰  Both the plaintiff’s expert, Mr Tan Jin Thong (a former Deputy Commissioner of the SCDF) and Ms Lim, were in agreement that the source of the fires and explosion were the Lithium Batteries. ⁵¹  However, notwithstanding this agreement, it was a major bone of contention between the parties whether the presence of the Lithium Batteries at the Sorting Yard was, in fact and in law, the proximate cause of the fires and eventual explosion, and in respect of which the defendant should bear legal liability to the plaintiff. I consider all of these issues in greater detail later in this judgment.

24    The plaintiff claims against the defendant in contract and tort for: (a) damages for the Claim Amount; (b) pre-judgment interest pursuant to s 12 of the Civil Law Act (Cap 43, 1999 Rev Ed) (the “CLA”); and (c) costs. In relation to its claim in contract, the plaintiff pleads that it was an “implied term” of the Agreement” that the defendant would “only dump or allow to be dumped general waste” and not “any flammable, hazardous, toxic industrial waste and/or waste which was of a dangerous nature” for the plaintiff’s “collection, processing and disposal”. The plaintiff further pleads that the defendant was “aware at all material times” of the same. ⁵²  The defendant breached the implied term of the Agreement in dumping or allowing substantial quantities of Lithium Batteries to be dumped into Skip Bin A10, for the plaintiff’s collection, processing and disposal on 7 June 2017 (the “Contract Claim”). ⁵³  

25    Further or in the alternative, the plaintiff pleads that the defendant “owed a duty of care to the [p]laintiff to ensure that waste dumped, or allowed to be dumped, by the [d]efendant, its employees, servants and/or agents, for collection, processing and disposal by the [p]laintiff did not contain flammable, hazardous, toxic industrial waste and/or waste which was of a dangerous nature”. The defendant breached its duty of care in dumping or allowing substantial quantities of Lithium Batteries to be dumped into Skip Bin A10, for the plaintiff’s collection, processing and disposal on 7 June 2017 (the “Negligence Claim”). ⁵⁴  

26    The plaintiff avers that the Lithium Batteries were collected from the Defendant’s Premises on 7 June 2017 since the plaintiff’s driver drove the Lorry “on which Skip Bin A10 had been loaded straight from the [Defendant’s] Premises to [the Plaintiff’s] Premises” without making “any stops at any other customer’s premises and did not deviate from the route”. ⁵⁵  The fires and explosions at the Plaintiff’s Premises were “solely caused or contributed to by the negligence of the [d]efendant”. ⁵⁶

27    The defendant on the other hand avers that it “could not have and did not pass any batteries to the [p]laintiff for collection, disposal and/or handling” as it “did not generate batteries in the course of its ordinary operations”. ⁵⁷  In any case, before the plaintiff collected the wastes, the defendant’s “workers, employees and/or representatives had manually checked and sorted the wastes and did not find any lithium batteries”. ⁵⁸  Thus, even if the defendant had collected the Lithium Batteries from its own customers unknowingly, the defendant would have realised so “in the course of sorting the waste and before placing the sorted waste in the [s]kip [b]in deployed at the Defendant’s Premises”. ⁵⁹  Further or alternatively, the defendants avers that the plaintiff had at the material time “agreed and/or arranged to collect flammable and/or hazardous wastes (potentially including batteries) from YTL PowerSeraya Pte Ltd (“PowerSeraya”) and that the batteries … could have been collected from PowerSeraya or other customers of the [p]laintiff”. ⁶⁰  

28    The defendant denies that there was an implied term under the Agreement ⁶¹  or that it owed the plaintiff a duty of care to ensure that the wastes in Skip Bin A10 “did not contain flammable, hazardous, toxic industrial waste and/or waste which was of a dangerous nature”. This is because the defendant had specifically made a request for the plaintiff to sort, segregate and remove any toxic and/or hazardous wastes or any other wastes that are not considered general wastes (“Prohibited Wastes”) from the defendant’s wastes before disposing the wastes at NEA’s incineration plant. The plaintiff hence “knew or ought to have known that the [d]efendant’s [w]astes it collected on 7 June 2017 may contain … toxic and hazardous wastes”. ⁶²

29    The defendant refutes any liability ⁶³  and submits that even if the defendant was found liable, the plaintiff contributed to the fires and explosions by, inter alia, utilising improper firefighting techniques and belatedly activating the SCDF. ⁶⁴

30    In response, the plaintiff avers that parties had “never agreed” for the plaintiff to sort, segregate and remove any Prohibited Wastes from the defendant’s waste. The plaintiff assumed that the “wastes collected from the Defendant’s Premises only contained general wastes”, ⁶⁵  especially since the defendant “knew at all material times that the Plaintiff did not have the necessary licence and/or authori[s]ation to collect hazardous and/or toxic industrial wastes”. ⁶⁶  Instead, the plaintiff would, after collecting the general wastes from the Defendant’s Premises, “usually assess if there are bulky items to be segregated from the wastes collected”. Such bulky wastes, which are non-incinerable, could not be “disposed of at the [NEA] incineration plant” and hence the general waste had to be brought back to the Plaintiff’s Premises for segregation “before disposing the rest of the general wastes at the incineration plant”. ⁶⁷  

31    The plaintiff also avers that both parties had, in or around November 2016, “collaborated to enable the [p]laintiff to submit a quotation to [PowerSeraya] for the collection of general and toxic wastes”. In particular, the defendant would “handle the collection of toxic industrial wastes” while the plaintiff would “handle the collection of general wastes”. ⁶⁸

35    The plaintiff argues that the Agreement was, at all material times, for the plaintiff to “provide services to [the defendant] for the collection, processing (if necessary) and disposal of general waste from [the Defendant’s] Premises” [emphasis in original] and that the defendant was aware that it “could only dump or allow to be dumped general waste and not any flammable, hazardous, toxic industrial waste and/or waste which was of a dangerous nature for [the plaintiff’s] collection, processing and disposal”. ⁶⁹  According to Mr Cai, if there were “any bulky items in the skip bins that needed to be segregated / processed”, the plaintiff would charge its customer “an additional handling fee” and the plaintiff’s “administrative staff would usually indicate on the collection slip that handling fees are payable and would include the handling fee when invoicing its customers”. ⁷⁰  Mr Cai also maintained the same at trial ⁷¹  and rejected the suggestion that the handling fee was for the purposes of sorting the defendant’s general waste from Mixed Waste. ⁷²  

36    Mr Cai’s evidence is also supported by that of Mr Lee Cheng Wah. According to Mr Lee Cheng Wah, the Agreement was for the plaintiff to “collect, process (if necessary) and dispose of general wastes collected from time to time from as and when such services were required by the [d]efendant in consideration of payment by the [d]efendant for the [p]laintiff’s services”. ⁷³  Furthermore, it was “never agreed” that the defendant “would make any request to the [p]laintiff for the [p]laintiff to sort, segregate and remove any [hazardous, toxic industrial waste and/or wastes which are of a dangerous nature] from the general wastes collected by the [p]laintiff from the [d]efendant’s premises”. He would “have never agreed” to collect Mixed Waste as the plaintiff is “only licensed to collect Classes A and B general wastes”. ⁷⁴  At trial, he also confirmed that “[t]he handling sorting [fee] is $150” and is charged “if there is a need to sort bulky waste”. ⁷⁵  

37    The defendant argues that a sorting request for the plaintiff to “sort, segregate and remove the Prohibited Wastes from the [d]efendant’s [w]astes before disposing and/or incinerating the same” would be made “when the [d]efendant’s [w]astes may contain Prohibited Waste[s]” or when the defendant was “unsure as to whether the [d]efendant’s [w]astes contained Prohibited Wastes”. The defendant pleads that this is simply because the defendant “did not have sufficient and/or adequate space and/or facility and/or equipment at the Defendant’s Premises to carry out a thorough sorting and/or segregation of the [d]efendant’s [w]astes”. The plaintiff would thereafter “return and/or send to the [d]efendant the Prohibited Wastes which it had removed” which the plaintiff was “unable to dispose of and/or handle” [emphasis added]. ⁷⁶  A fixed fee of $150 was payable to the plaintiff in consideration for such request. ⁷⁷  For example, according to Mr Tan Kim Seng, certain parts of a refrigerator may contain Prohibited Wastes (ie, the coolant). Instead of “dismantling the fridge itself, [the defendant] would request [the plaintiff] to … sort, segregate and remove” such Prohibited Wastes from the defendant’s Mixed Waste. ⁷⁸  

38    It is undisputed that, following the telephone conversation between the defendant’s Mr Tan Kim Seng and the plaintiff’s Mr Lee Cheng Wah on 7 June 2017 [see [8] above], the defendant’s waste was collected by the plaintiff from the Defendant’s Premises on 7 June 2017 in Skip Bin A10 and “transported back to the Plaintiff’s Premises for sorting and/or segregation and that the [d]efendant had paid the [p]laintiff the [h]andling [f]ee to do so”. ⁷⁹  The dispute lies in the scope of the Segregation Request.

39    First, the defendant argues that it does not make commercial sense to pay a handling fee only to sort bulky items. ⁸⁰  As Mr Cai testified, the plaintiff would bring “more than 90 per cent” of the waste collected back to its premises “because [the plaintiff is] unsure whether there is any bulky waste or there is any waste that requires segregation”. The plaintiff’s standard practice is thus to “send most back to [the Sorting Yard]” unless they are certain that there is “nothing to sort”, such as “food waste”, in which case such waste would be sent to NEA incineration facility directly. ⁸¹  According to the defendant, this suggests that the plaintiff “adopts the same process for sorting all wastes” and hence there is “no reason or basis” for the plaintiff to charge and the defendant to pay $150 for the purpose of sorting out bulky items. ⁸²  

40    I reject the defendant’s contention. On the defendant’s own evidence, Mr Tan Kim Seng himself explained that the defendant “may also request for [the plaintiff] to sort and dispose of items which are too large in size or quantity and cannot fit into the [s]kip [b]in”. For example, when the defendant collects “large used pallets from its customers and knows that the pallets comprise primarily of general wastes which [the plaintiff] would be able to handle (for example, the plastic wrapping around the pallets and the pallets themselves)”, it would request for the plaintiff to “carry out the sorting, dismantling and disposal of the pallets”. Contrary to the defendant’s argument, he explained that such arrangement is commercially sensible as it “was more efficient for [the plaintiff] to carry out the sorting and dismantling of such large and bulky wastes” for a fee of $150. ⁸³  Mr Tan Kim Seng’s evidence is corroborated by Mr Marcus Tan’s evidence, who also understood the handling fee to be payment in relation to the handling of bulky items. ⁸⁴  

41    The defendant’s second argument is that the plaintiff’s “position on who would decide whether the [d]efendant’s [w]astes should be sent to the Plaintiff’s Premises to sort bulky items and when the [d]efendant would be charged … is inconsistent and irreconcilable” is similarly unpersuasive. ⁸⁵  Even if there are discrepancies in the plaintiff’s evidence as to who would make the decision to sort the defendant’s wastes, I do not think that such discrepancies are fatal to the plaintiff’s case as the defendant contends. In my view, the crucial factual issue in dispute to be determined is what kind of waste the Segregation Request pertains to – who made the decision to segregate the defendant’s wastes is altogether a wholly separate matter that is not necessarily helpful to determining the issue at hand. 

42    The defendant’s third argument in support of its position is that only the defendant was charged the $150 handling fee on the documentary evidence before the court. According to Mr Cai, it is “[q]uite common” for the plaintiff to charge all of its customers such a fee but later changed his position to testify that it is “very rare” to charge the other customers such a fee. ⁸⁶  Even if I accept that the documentary evidence before me shows that only the defendant had been charged with such handling fee, I am not convinced that this shows such a handling fee could not have been for the sorting of incinerable general waste from non-incinerable general waste such as bulky items, particularly in light of the defendant’s own evidence.

45    In addition, the defendant’s pleading on the scope of the Segregation Request and the evidence it led at trial were, in my view, inconsistent. The Defence (Amendment No. 3) states that a Segregation Request would be made where the defendant’s wastes contained “any toxic and/or hazardous wastes or any other wastes which are not considered general wastes” [emphasis added]. ⁸⁷  On a plain reading, the pleading gives the impression that a Segregation Request could be made where Skip Bin A10 was filled with Mixed Wastes in any quantities (eg, half-filled with general waste and half-filled with toxic or hazardous or non-general wastes). In contrast, the defendant’s evidence at trial sought to narrow the scope to only small quantities of such waste, such as home appliances or electronic devices which may contain toxic or hazardous waste among its components (eg, a refrigerator containing coolant or a laptop/handphone with its battery component that may be dumped into the skip bin with the general waste). The defendant’s evidence at trial, in that sense, was not entirely consistent with its pleaded case. 

46    Furthermore, the defendant’s pleaded case is that when a Segregation Request was made, the plaintiff was to “return and/or send to the [d]efendant the Prohibited Wastes which it had removed from the [d]efendant’s [w]astes and/or any other wastes which the [p]laintiff had sorted and/or segregated … that the [p]laintiff was unable to dispose of and/or handle”. ⁸⁸  This pleading was problematic for a number of reasons.

49    The defendant also contended that the plaintiff “had knowingly agreed to collect wastes which it was not licensed to collect” from one of its customers, namely PowerSeraya, and agreed to “collect and disposal [sic] of toxic industrial wastes” under an agreement with PowerSeraya for waste management for the period of one year from 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2017 (the “PowerSeraya Agreement”). ⁸⁹  The defendant argues that this undermines the plaintiff’s contention that it is not a licenced Toxic Industrial Waste collector and thus would never have agreed to collecting or processing the defendant’s Mixed Waste. ⁹⁰  I will term this line of argument as the “PowerSeraya Issue”.

50    The defendant highlights that, on the face of the Schedule of Prices to the PowerSeraya Agreement read with the emails between PowerSeraya and the plaintiff in January 2017, ⁹¹  it is undisputed that the plaintiff would be responsible for the collection and disposal of “oil-contaminated rags and solid waste”. ⁹²  Clause 4.1.2.1 of the Specifications to the PowerSeraya Agreement further elaborates that the “main toxic industrial wastes generated by [PowerSeraya] and their projected quantities may include but are not limited to … Oil-contaminated rags, used plant/oil containers with left over paint / oil and solid waste ~ 400 Kg per month”. ⁹³  According to the defendant, these sufficiently show that the plaintiff, contrary to their assertions, “agreed to collect and disposal [sic] of toxic industrial wastes”. ⁹⁴  

51    Clause 4.3.1 of the Specifications to the PowerSeraya Agreement stipulates the scope of works for the disposal of general waste as follows: ⁹⁵

According to the defendant, this shows that the plaintiff had agreed to collect and dispose Class C general waste in breach of its own General Waste Collector licence, under which it could only collect Class A and Class B general waste (see [4]). Mr Lee Chee Pin (“Mr Steven Lee”), the plaintiff’s director, similarly agreed that “[a]ccording to the contract”, the plaintiff would be “required to collect [C]lass C general waste” and that the plaintiff had thus “agreed to collect waste that it is not licensed to collect”. ⁹⁶

52    Lastly, clause 12 of the Terms and Conditions to the PowerSeraya Agreement stipulates: ⁹⁷

Thus, the defendant submits that “it is inconceivable that PowerSeraya would have agreed to allow the [d]efendant to carry a significant portion of the contract works without setting out its consent in writing”. ⁹⁸

53    The essence of the plaintiff’s case in respect of the PowerSeraya Issue is that the plaintiff had never collected toxic industrial waste ⁹⁹  or Class C general waste from PowerSeraya, and instead, such waste was collected and disposed of by another waste collector. ¹⁰⁰  

54    The plaintiff submits that, even though the aforementioned clauses of the PowerSeraya Agreement seem to suggest that the plaintiff collected and disposed of PowerSeraya’s toxic industrial waste, the plaintiff in fact only collected and disposed of general waste. According to the plaintiff, PowerSeraya’s toxic industrial waste had been, at all material times, collected and disposed of by a waste collector other than itself and that there is “not one shred of evidence that establishes [that the plaintiff] collected toxic waste from PowerSeraya”. ¹⁰¹  

55    According to Mr Steven Lee, PowerSeraya requested “for a quotation for waste management services for the period from 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2017… for disposal of general wastes as well as for disposal of toxic wastes” on 2 November 2016. The defendant had agreed to “work together to provide a quotation to PowerSeraya”, and he informed PowerSeraya’s Mr Heng Chin Wen that the plaintiff “did not have the licence to dispose of toxic industrial wastes” and that the “disposal of general wastes would be handled by the [p]laintiff and the disposal of toxic wastes would be handled by the [d]efendant”. The intention was therefore for a joint quotation to be sent to PowerSeraya. On or about 14 November 2016, the defendant sent Mr Steven Lee the “proposed prices to be quoted to PowerSeraya for the toxic waste management services” and the plaintiff submitted a quotation to PowerSeraya the next day, “taking into account the proposed prices received” from the defendant together with the plaintiff’s “proposed pricing for the general waste management services”. ¹⁰²

57    When the quotation which the defendant submitted to the plaintiff on 14 November 2016 is compared with the request for a quotation which PowerSeraya sent to the plaintiff on 2 November 2016, the respective headers, numbering, and descriptions in the defendant’s quotation to the plaintiff are identical to that requested by PowerSeraya from the plaintiff. In my judgment, such precise and exact correspondence between the documents indicates that the defendant’s quotation to the plaintiff could only have been made for the purpose of the plaintiff preparing a quotation to PowerSeraya combining both the plaintiff’s scope of services and the defendant’s scope of services, as contended by the plaintiff. This demonstrates that, from the earliest stages of any business relationship between PowerSeraya and the plaintiff (ie, the invitation from PowerSeraya to the plaintiff for a quotation on 2 November 2016 ¹⁰³  and the subsequent submission of such quotation), the plaintiff intended to rely on the defendant for the collection and disposal of the aforementioned wastes and did not, as the defendant argues, intend to collect and dispose of PowerSeraya’s toxic industrial waste by itself. 

58    More specifically, the quotation from the defendant to the plaintiff dated 14 November 2016 included the “transportation and disposal” of oil-contaminated rags and solid waste. The defendant estimated that 30 bins a year would be necessary, at a unit rate of about $110 per 660L bin. ¹⁰⁴  The amount quoted by the plaintiff to PowerSeraya for “Oil-contaminated rags and solid waste in bin (660L)” under “Toxic Waste Disposal” likewise corresponds with that quoted by the defendant to the plaintiff just the day prior. ¹⁰⁵  This is not, in my view, mere coincidence or unrelated to the intention expressed by the plaintiff to present a composite quotation to PowerSeraya combining both parties’ scope of services. Additionally, PowerSeraya’s very first request for the deployment of “two empty 250 litre wheelie bins” for toxic industrial waste such as “contaminated rags, gloves and solid wastes” was sent, by way of an email with the subject title “Collection of lab toxic wastes at YTL PowerSeraya” dated 2 June 2017, to only the defendant without being copied to the plaintiff. ¹⁰⁶  In my view, it is telling that PowerSeraya addressed that particular request, in relation to toxic industrial waste, only to the defendant without mentioning the plaintiff at all. 

59    Mr Marcus Tan of the defendant stated that the defendant “was approached by PowerSeraya out of the blue with a request for the [d]efendant to collect and handle its toxic wastes” and that he was “surprised by the email” from PowerSeraya (referred to at [58] above] as the defendant “never had any business dealings with PowerSeraya”. He then called the PowerSeraya representative to “understand what was going on” and was “shocked to discover” that PowerSeraya was under the impression that the plaintiff had partnered with the defendant for the collection of PowerSeraya’s wastes. ¹⁰⁷  

60    I reject the defendant’s evidence that PowerSeraya emailed them “out of the blue” or that the defendant was not aware why PowerSeraya contacted it directly. That contention is simply not credible. I also reject the defendant’s submissions that the plaintiff’s “story that the [d]efendant was to provide the toxic waste collection and disposal works required under the PowerSeraya [Agreement] is no more than a tall tale spun by the [p]laintiff” ¹⁰⁸  and that the plaintiff “had no qualms agreeing to collect wastes from PowerSeraya which it was not licensed to”. ¹⁰⁹  On the contrary, the objective evidence clearly demonstrates that the plaintiff had involved the defendant in relation to the PowerSeraya Agreement quotation before the plaintiff even submitted its quotation to PowerSeraya. Furthermore, the defendant’s reply to PowerSeraya’s email of 2 June 2017 was to point out that “[that] is not quoted under the contract” (ie, for “660L” bins). The defendant’s reply to PowerSeraya, by one Christine, was also not copied to the plaintiff. ¹¹⁰  In my view, this sufficiently demonstrated that the defendant was familiar with the requirements under the PowerSeraya Agreement and was aware that it entailed the plaintiff and defendant providing a combination of services to PowerSeraya, depending on the service required and which party was licenced to carry out the particular service required. Despite his surprise at receiving PowerSeraya’s email “out of the blue”, there was no email from the defendant’s Mr Marcus Tan to PowerSeraya (or to the plaintiff) expressing any surprise; instead, the reply from the defendant was to inform PowerSeraya that the service requested fell outside the scope of the contract. It is telling that the defendant’s reply sent by Christine was copied to both Mr Tan Kim Seng and Mr Marcus Tan. There was also no plausible reason for PowerSeraya to send an email request for services to the defendant directly unless it was known and understood by PowerSeraya that under the PowerSeraya Agreement, the actual collection and disposal of any toxic industrial waste would be undertaken by the defendant, not the plaintiff.  

61    Further, the fact that the defendant never had any direct business dealings with PowerSeraya prior to 2 June 2017 is not necessarily inconsistent with the plaintiff’s case. In its email dated 2 June 2017, PowerSeraya elaborated that its request to the defendant was for “two empty 250 litre wheelie bins” for the “disposal and containment of toxic lab wastes such as contaminated rags, gloves and solid wastes” that “will replace the two full bins which [PowerSeraya] will arrange to be taken away permanently by the previous waste collector as we transfer to [the plaintiff] as [PowerSeraya’s] waste collector” [emphasis added]. ¹¹¹  Even if it may be possible that PowerSeraya “would have required the collection or disposal of such waste before 2 June 2017”, it is nevertheless unlikely that PowerSeraya required the plaintiff’s or the defendant’s services for the collection and disposal of the oil-contaminated rags and solid waste (ie, toxic industrial waste) until sometime after 2 June 2017. As Mr Marcus Tan noted, if the plaintiff had collected any toxic industrial waste from PowerSeraya, he would expect to see records evidencing this; ¹¹²  it is not in dispute that there was no evidence in the record, documentary or otherwise, indicating that the plaintiff had ever (whether before or after the incident on 7 June 2017) collected any toxic industrial waste from PowerSeraya. 

62    For completeness, the same email thread referred to at [61] above shows that PowerSeraya only emailed the plaintiff on 7 June 2017 while copying the defendant. In it, PowerSeraya repeated its earlier request to the defendant for “two empty bins” for the “containment of lab toxic wastes such as rags and other solid wastes”. ¹¹³  This suggests that even up to 7 June 2017 (ie, the day of the incident), no bins had been provided to PowerSeraya, whether by the plaintiff or the defendant. 

63    Shorn of all the fluff, the defendant’s entire argument surrounding the PowerSeraya Issue was, in my view, ultimately a red herring and an unnecessary distraction. I therefore disagree with the defendant that the “irresistible inference” is that the plaintiff “must have agreed to and did in fact collect and dispose of toxic wastes from PowerSeraya”, as the defendant contends. ¹¹⁴  The inference is, in my view, neither irresistible nor one that can be reasonably made on the evidence. 

65    Turning back to the issue at hand, that the scope of the Agreement and the Segregation Request is as asserted by the plaintiff is also borne out on the defendant’s own evidence. According to Mr Marcus Tan, the “only business relationship” between the plaintiff and the defendant had was for the plaintiff “to collect and dispose of the [d]efendant’s general wastes”. ¹¹⁵  The defendant’s process maintenance and construction worker, Mr Sarkar Mohammad Sohel (“Mr Sohel”), similarly testified that his “boss”, Mr Tan Kim Seng, had instructed him that only general waste can be thrown into the skip bin provided by the plaintiff. ¹¹⁶  My conclusion is further supported by the defendant’s waste sorting procedure dated 26 February 2016, ¹¹⁷  as shown to Mr Tan Kim Seng and signed by Mr Marcus Tan (the “Waste Sorting Procedure”). ¹¹⁸  As Mr Marcus Tan explained, the defendant “has implemented a set of guidelines for the sorting of any incoming waste prior to disposal of the same” as it “cannot take … for granted that the waste received from its customers has already been sorted or correctly declared”. The defendant’s guidelines are fairly detailed and set out the standard procedures to be followed covering a wide range of operational matters from the point of waste collection by the defendant’s driver to the performing of verification tests on incoming toxic industrial wastes. ¹¹⁹  

66    In the defendant’s Waste Sorting Procedure, the plaintiff is referred to as the defendant’s “transporter” under the section explaining the “Disposal Methodology” for “General Waste” and the plaintiff’s skip bin is referred to as “the general waste bin”: ¹²⁰

It is significant that, according to the Waste Sorting Procedure, the defendant’s workers are to dump only general waste into the general waste bin at the Defendant’s Premises and only after sorting out its waste. I highlight that the foregoing is entirely consistent with Mr Tan Kim Seng’s explanation on the defendant’s practice in relation to dumping of general wastes into the plaintiff’s skip bin. ¹²¹  Mr Sohel’s evidence is also that he understood that the skip bin “was provided by [the defendant’s] general waste collector at the time” and that such skip bin was to “dump sorted general wastes into” [emphasis added]. ¹²²

67    Additionally, it was only in the defendant’s Defence (Amendment No. 2) dated 19 August 2020 that the defendant pleaded that the Agreement was for the collection, processing (if necessary) and disposal of the defendant’s Mixed Waste and segregating general waste from such Mixed Waste pursuant to a Segregation Request. Prior to that, and even up to its Defence (Amendment No. 1) dated 9 January 2020, the defendant had admitted to the plaintiff’s pleaded position that the scope of the Agreement pertained to the defendant’s general waste only ¹²³  and that the defendant “should only pass on general wastes which are not flammable, hazardous and/or toxic in nature to the [p]laintiff for the [p]laintiff, [sic] collection, disposal and/or handling”. ¹²⁴  The defendant had also previously admitted that it owed the plaintiff “a duty to exercise reasonable care to ensure that the wastes which the [d]efendant passed to the [p]laintiff for collection, disposal and/or handling are not flammable, hazardous and/or toxic wastes”. ¹²⁵  In the defendant’s solicitors’ initial reply to the plaintiff’s solicitors by way of a letter dated 7 June 2018, the defendant also accepted that the plaintiff was “at all material times contracted by [the defendant] to collect general waste”. ¹²⁶  No mention was made then of any agreement to sort Mixed Waste as is now pleaded in the defence. While the defendant is entitled to amend its pleadings and is ultimately bound by the latest version of its defence, the inconsistent positions taken by the defendant in the earlier iterations of its defence on such a crucial issue – which, in this case, forms a significant part of the backdrop to the parties’ business relationship – cannot go unnoticed. It lends credence to the plaintiff’s contention that the defendant’s current pleaded position on the scope of the Agreement and the Segregation Request is an afterthought. 

68    Only Mr Tan Kim Seng contends that the parties’ Agreement is not limited to the plaintiff’s collection, processing (if necessary), and disposal of the defendant’s general waste only and that the Segregation Request is for the plaintiff to sort and segregate general waste from the defendant’s Mixed Waste. ¹²⁷  The defendant sought to explain the reason for the changes in its pleaded case as attributable to Mr Tan Kim Seng’s belated involvement in the case. ¹²⁸  I do not accept that reason as a plausible one. Mr Tan Kim Seng appeared to be a hands-on person as far as the defendant’s affairs were concerned. It came as a “shock” to him when the defendant received a letter of demand from the plaintiff’s solicitors in April 2018, to which demand the defendant’s solicitors replied substantively in June 2018. If indeed the scope of the Agreement and Segregation Request was as per the defendant’s current pleaded case, I find it implausible that Mr Tan Kim Seng would not have taken steps to make sure that it was brought to the attention of the defendant’s solicitors from the very inception of the dispute – more so when all of the terms of the Agreement were orally agreed between himself and Mr Lee Chee Wah and were not subsequently recorded or evidenced in writing. Even if I accept the explanation for the belated changes in the defendant’s pleaded position, it was still sorely inadequate to explain the significant inconsistencies in the defendant’s evidence on the matter and did not support Mr Tan Kim Seng’s evidence. At best, Mr Tan Kim Seng’s assertions are bare ones, and in parts incoherent. I elaborate on these points further below.

69    As an aside and for completeness, I note that the defendant has suggested, in its closing reply submissions, that Mr Tan Kim Seng’s evidence is to be preferred over Mr Marcus Tan’s evidence. The latter had testified that he was not aware of the Segregation Request as asserted by the defendant in its pleadings and was not informed by Mr Tan Kim Seng that there was any such arrangement with the plaintiff. ¹²⁹  Even though Mr Marcus Tan is also a director of the defendant and Mr Tan Kim Seng’s son, the defendant submits that “not all directors are familiar with or even aware of all details of a company’s operations”. In that regard, the defendant submits that Mr Marcus Tan may not have been “involved in or would be familiar with” the defendant’s operations and the Agreement, which was orally agreed between Mr Lee Cheng Wah and Mr Tan Kim Seng. ¹³⁰  

76    Turning now to the day of the incident, 7 June 2017, the parties largely agree on what was communicated orally by Mr Tan Kim Seng to Mr Lee Cheng Wah when they spoke over the phone. According to Mr Lee Cheng Wah,  ¹³¹  Mr Tan Kim Seng had requested for the plaintiff to “collect a skip bin containing general wastes from the Defendant’s [P]remises” and that “there would be some bulky items in the skip bin to be collected”. He had considered such request as “normal” since such “bulky items are considered general wastes which the [p]laintiff had the necessary licence and/or authori[s]ation to collect”. Furthermore, Mr Tan Kim Seng had not informed that the “skip bin would contain any Prohibited Wastes” or requested the plaintiff to “sort, segregate and remove any Prohibited Wastes from the general wastes collected”.

77    The plaintiff’s evidence is, in substance, not contradicted by the defendant’s evidence. According to Mr Tan Kim Seng, he had called Mr Lee Cheng Wah to “send his staff down to collect” the skip bin from the Defendant’s Premises and had made a Segregation Request because he “knew that [the defendant] had just cleared a few electrical appliances including a mini-fridge and printer from its office” which were “thrown into” the skip bin. ¹³²  At trial, Mr Tan Kim Seng explained that he knew about the mini-fridge and printer even though he did not personally see or check the contents of the skip bin because he had specifically instructed his staff to throw those items away. ¹³³  He also accepted that electrical appliances such as printers and refrigerators ultimately fall within the Class A general waste under the Regulations on General Waste Collection, but nevertheless had to be segregated from the rest of the defendant’s waste in the skip bin as they were bulky items and non-incinerable. ¹³⁴

80    The plaintiff pleads that the defendant breached an implied term of the Agreement that the defendant would “only dump or allow to be dumped general waste” for the plaintiff’s collection, processing and disposal. ¹³⁵  The plaintiff did not properly address or expand on this point in its closing submissions. The plaintiff merely submitted that the “facts” which establish the defendant’s breach of duty of care to the plaintiff likewise establish that the defendant “has breached its contract” with the plaintiff. ¹³⁶  

81    The defendant submits that the term which the plaintiff seeks to imply into the Agreement would not pass the three requirements necessary for implying a term in fact as set out by the Court of Appeal in Sembcorp Marine Ltd v PPL Holdings Pte Ltd and another and another appeal [2013] 4 SLR 193 (“Semcborp”) (ie, that there is a “true gap” at [94(a)] and [101(a)], the alleged term satisfies the business efficacy test and the officious bystander test at [101(b)–(c)]). ¹³⁷  

84    The plaintiff submits, briefly, in reply that “it is implicit from the policy considerations” and the present circumstances, including the defendant’s knowledge that the plaintiff is licenced to collect only Class A and Class B general waste, that it is “appropriate” to imply the term alleged by the plaintiff. ¹³⁸  The plaintiff thus seems to hint that the alleged term is an “implied term in law” (and cites Chua Choon Cheng and others v Allgreen Properties Ltd and another appeal [2009] 3 SLR 724 (“Chua Choon Cheng”) at [68]–[69] in support). However, the plaintiff’s argument which focuses on the unique circumstances of the present case as between the plaintiff and the defendant is more relevant for an implied term in fact, rather than a term implied in law; the plaintiff’s submissions seemed to conflate the two concepts. As the Court of Appeal in Chua Choon Cheng emphasised at [69], a term implied in law “will be implied in all contracts of a defined type, unless it is contrary to the express words of the agreement” and hence “such a term extends and applies to all future like cases”, which is quite unlike a term implied in fact. For that reason, the threshold to be satisfied before a term is implied in law is a high one and the court “should ordinarily exercise considerable restraint”. I do not think that the plaintiff has satisfied that high threshold and hence I decline to imply the term in law.

90    In my judgment, the threshold requirement is clearly satisfied in the circumstances of the present case. I agree with the plaintiff’s submission that the defendant knew that the plaintiff would suffer damage in the event of carelessness by the defendant in discarding Prohibited Wastes in the general waste bin deployed by the plaintiff at the Defendant’s Premises. ¹³⁹  This is especially so in this particular case, where such Prohibited Wastes included strictly regulated toxic industrial waste and/or hazardous substances. In addition, the defendant (itself a company in the waste collection business) was in fact aware, at all material times, that the plaintiff lacked the necessary licence to collect, transport or otherwise deal with such toxic or hazardous substances.

92    The plaintiff highlights that Mr Marcus Tan accepted that the defendant, as the party throwing waste into the skip bin for the plaintiff’s collection, processing (if necessary) and disposal, has a duty to ensure that the waste therein would not include significant fire and explosion hazards. The plaintiff submits that this admission by Mr Marcus Tan demonstrates that the defendant “must have foreseen the potential danger that could arise from a failure to check the bins and the waste dumped inside them”. ¹⁴⁰  

93    However, the defendant contends that the plaintiff “should have known that the waste it collects may contain items which pose a fire hazard when crushed”. The defendant highlights that the plaintiff accepts that some general waste such as mobile phones, laptops, computers and gas canisters are considered flammable. Some “electrical appliances”, which fall within Class A general waste under the Regulations on General Waste Collection, may thus contain “[l]ithium batteries or [l]ithium components”. ¹⁴¹

98    The plaintiff highlights that the defendant was “aware at all material times that it could only dump or allow to be dumped general waste” and that the arrangement between the parties (ie, where the skip bin was in the defendant’s “custody and control”) meant that the plaintiff relied on the defendant to ensure that the skip bin contained only general waste. ¹⁴²  Additionally, (as briefly discussed at [92]), Mr Marcus Tan testified that the defendant, as the party throwing waste into the skip bin, owed the plaintiff a duty to ensure that the defendant’s waste is free from waste which could pose significant fire and explosion hazards. ¹⁴³  Coupled with the fact that the defendant’s Waste Sorting Procedure (see [66]) provided that general waste is to be “dumped via a forklift into the general waste bin” after sorting, I agree with the plaintiff and find that the defendant voluntarily assumed responsibility to ensure that the waste in the skip bin consisted only of general waste. ¹⁴⁴  

99    I am also satisfied that there are no policy considerations in this case that would negate the prima facie duty of care. I agree with the plaintiff that the “fact that there are regulations in respect of toxic and/or hazardous waste indicates strongly that there can be no policy reasons to negate the imposition of a duty of care”. ¹⁴⁵  

100    Before I end this section and for completeness, the Court of Appeal specifically indicated that the “presence of a contractual matrix which has clearly defined the rights and liabilities of the parties” may be a relevant policy consideration which negates the prima facie duty of care in some cases (Spandeck at [83]). While the parties’ relationship in the present case is ultimately a contractual one, I do not think that the Agreement in this case so clearly defines each party’s rights and liabilities to the extent that it negates a prima facie duty of care. In its submissions, the defendant does not seriously contend that the three requirements (ie, factual foreseeability, legal proximity, and absence of any policy considerations negating the prima facie duty of care) are not satisfied in this case. Instead, the defendant argues, more generally, that given its position on the scope of the Agreement and the Segregation Request, ¹⁴⁶  “it must follow that the Defendant was under no duty to ensure that the Defendant's Wastes which it passed to the Plaintiff did not contain any Prohibited Wastes when a [Segregation Request] was made”. ¹⁴⁷  I have already explained my reasons for disagreeing with the defendant’s position on Issue 1 and I reiterate them here. For those reasons, I likewise disagree with the defendant’s arguments on why it does not owe the plaintiff a duty of care.

105    In the present case, the relevant risk is the risk of property damage as a result of inadvertently or carelessly passing the Lithium Batteries to the plaintiff in a skip bin meant only for general waste. The Lithium Batteries are, in turn, undisputed to be a type of Prohibited Wastes for which the defendant knew the plaintiff is not licenced or otherwise equipped to collect. More generally, lithium is itself a “very soft silvery reactive alkali metal” with its reactivity generally increasing with “temperature and surface area, and the presence of moisture”. Molten lithium is “extremely reactive” and “[e]xposed lithium foil is reactive in contact with moist atmosphere due to its large surface area”. ¹⁴⁸  Similarly, in its forensic report, the HSA noted that upon “exposure in the air, the silver substances turned dark grey and grey, heat was also produced. The addition of water to the silver substances produced sparks, smoke and flame”. ¹⁴⁹  It is thus evidently clear that the lithium in the Lithium Batteries are per se highly reactive so as to make it particularly dangerous, especially without the appropriate equipment to manage such reactive metals.

107    The plaintiff submits that the standard of care accepted by the defendant is to “actually check what is inside the skip bin before [the plaintiff] comes to collect (and this checking must be done from time to time and not just once)” to satisfy itself that “no dangerous waste had been dumped or allowed to be dumped into Skip Bin A10”. This is especially since the plaintiff’s services are requested by the defendant when the Skip Bin A10 is already full, such that the plaintiff’s Lorry driver would not be able to “check what was below the bulky items that were in the upper part of Skip Bin A10”. ¹⁵⁰

108    The defendant rejects that the standard of care extends to checking what was inside the skip bin as the skip bin “was placed within the Defendant’s Premises and only the Defendant’s Workers or personnel within the Defendant’s Premises would have access to the same” and in any case is “unreasonable and unrealistic”. ¹⁵¹  The defendant’s case is that the defendant “had expended more than ample effort and exercised more than reasonable care in discharge of its duty” for the following reasons. ¹⁵²