This is in contrast to previous requirements which stated a firm could comply to draft waste management regulations while waiting for a full waste management licence.
The decision comes after what environment manager Bob Derbyshire at the Environment Agency’s North West office said was an increase in relevant technology coming on stream such as “fridge munchers” which meant that stock-piles should soon become a thing of the past and the need to have a draft licence whilst storing fridges would therefore become unnecessary.
Fire
The action, says the Environment Agency, will help prevent incidents such as the huge fire that tore through a stock-pile of several thousand fridges held at a Manchester based fridge reprocessing site last week.
Flames attacked a three metre high stack of fridges belonging to Britannia Import and Export, forcing over 90 fire-fighters to be called out on Sunday evening on September 30.
Causes of the fire are said to be suspicious and fire investigators are currently compiling a report into the incident at the Albert Street site – one of the smaller of Britannia's eight Oldham-based fridge storage sites.
Britannia
After a meeting with the Environment Agency, Environmental Health officials and the Greater Manchester Fire Service last Monday, it was decided that access to similar such storage sites in all of Greater Manchester should be made easier for fire fighters, especially as it was revealed that fire fighters could not access the blaze without scrambling over the top of the fridges.
According to divisional officer at Greater Manchester Fire Service, Bob Hayden, “a number of fire-fighters were injured in the attempt to douse the flames and were forced to clamber over fridges and slipped in between some of them.”
A further fire service meeting held this morning looked at making sure such sites in Manchester had stored their fridges in a safe manner allowing access for fire services, said Mr Hayden.
Bill Derbyshire, environment manager at North West offices of the Environment Agency said it had not been concluded whether there had been a breach of the draft storage regulations. If further investigation proved there had been, the Environment Agency would be forced to take further action against Britannia.
Investigation
Britannia is already at the centre of a safety investigation by the Environment Agency as it was recently issued with an enforcement order to either remove 150,000 fridges from all of its sites by 4 November 2002 or to comply with what had become repeated requests for information which would allow the Agency to process its waste management licence.
Subscribe for free