General deterrence is a fundamental and mandatory consideration in sentencing for environmental offences under the POEO Act, and a sentencing judge cannot find that it has no role to play at all, absent circumstances such as mental health conditions that render the offender an inappropriate vehicle for general deterrence. The payment of a prosecutor's costs alone, without a fine, is insufficient to reflect the objective seriousness of sustained environmental offending involving the unlicensed use of land as a waste facility. Covert surveillance by a regulatory authority investigating environmental offending does not constitute encouragement or facilitation of the offending and is not a mitigating factor on sentence.
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