Agency issues hazardous waste guidance

Entitled Review of Incidents at Hazardous Waste Management Facilities (Version 2.7 October 2013), the guidance provides a summary of a number of incidents which have occurred over a period of more than 15 years.

The root cause of many of these incidents was incompatible or poorly characterised wastes being mixed or stored together, according to the Agency which said it has addressed the issue in detail in the S5.06 guidance.

Explaining the significance of the latest guidance, the Agency said: This guidance reflects the high priority areas, including accident prevention and limitation of consequences. It sets out, amongst other things, rigorous standards for waste pre-acceptance, acceptance, storage and treatment which operators should have in place. Despite this, further high profile incidents have continued to occur within the sector, many arising for similar reasons to previous incidents.

We review all incidents and near misses at hazardous waste transfer and treatment sites. The findings are disseminated to our staff in order, where possible, to prevent any reoccurrence of these incidents through our permitting and compliance work. We also review the adequacy of our guidance in light of all incidents. We have previously circulated the information that follows in an internal report but now make our findings available to the waste treatment industry. We hope that by doing so, the knowledge gained will enable other operators to prevent similar incidents occurring at their sites.

The Agency added that operational practices have moved on since a number of these incidents occurred.

Incidents

Incidents at sites owned by Shanks, Veolia Environmental Services (Veolia ES), Biffa Waste Services and Tradebe North West were among those cited in the guidance.

One incident took place at Veolia ES Cleanaways site in Preston on July 2 2007 in which a major fire started consuming 130 tonnes of mostly flammable waste. A significant amount of damage was caused to the premises, but nobody was hurt, according to the Environment Agency. The fire is believed to have started when a pallet of lithium batteries reacted with rainfall and spontaneously ignited.

Fatality

The only fatal incident cited in the guidance took place at Park Environmentals site in Newport on July 16 2001. The incident happened when three times the normal amount of caustic was added to a treatment tank in one go producing a vigorous reaction and the release of a cloud of sulphide gas.

The Agency said the incident was only noticed when an employee (the site chemist) was found unconscious within the building where the treatment was taking place. The alarm was raised and the site chemist attempted to shut the batching and mixing process down remotely using the automated system. When this failed to respond, the chemist decided to attempt to shut the system down manually close to the tank. He entered the building and was later found by the fire crews. He was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital.