WRA eager to publish fire storage guidance

Previously discredited limits on permitted waste wood stockpile sizes which were reproduced in Environment Agency fire prevention guidance are causing confusion between recyclers and regulators, according to the Wood Recyclers Association (WRA).

The Association is keen to publish its own guidance with limits it says that have been broadly accepted by regulators and recyclers alike. But, this has been put on hold by the Agency for the last eight months following a spate of fires at waste management sites last year.

Executive director of the WRA, Peter Butt, today told letsrecycle.com that the Association had reached agreement with the Environment Agency that figures for maximum wood stack sizes outlined in previous draft Agency guidance were inoperable.

However, the heights and sizes were reproduced in the Agencys Technical Guidance Note (TGN 7.01) on fire prevention, issued in October 2013 (see letsrecycle.com story), and have in some cases been wrongly quoted to recyclers by local regulators, Mr Butt said.

As the trade association for the wood recycling industry, the WRA which held a members meeting in Birmingham yesterday (March 5) was asked by the Agency to develop its own guidance on fire storage, which according to Mr Butt includes stack size figures acceptable to both regulators and recyclers.

Technical Guidance Note

But, as a temporary measure after a spate of fires in the recycling industry, the Agency issued the Technical Guidance Note (TGN) Reducing Fire Risk at Sites Storing Combustible Materials in collaboration with the Chief Fire Officers Association (CFOA) towards the end of last year and the WRA guidance was put on hold.

It is intended that the TGN is eventually replaced by generic guidance from both the Environmental Services Association (ESA) and the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM), with trade associations such as the WRA also producing guidance.

But Mr Butt said it was now eight months since the WRA guidance document was first put on hold, adding that the continued block on its publication was very frustrating.

He said: Regulators like the document and agree that it is the best guidance available to the wood recycling industry. Therefore it is disappointing that it has been replaced, in the short term, by a document TGN 7.01 which uses figures for waste wood stockpile size which were totally discredited over three years ago.

The TGN uses the same stockpile figures originally outlined in the first draft of the Agencys Pollution Prevention Guidelines (PPG29) in 2010, which states that stacks of wood should be a maximum of 1,370 cubic metres in volume, 10 metres high and 20 metres wide or long, with a minimum of six metres separation between stacks.

Mr Butt added: We have already seen cases where local regulatory authorities are quoting these inoperable limits at wood recyclers.

As a result, Mr Butt said he was working with the Agency and the CFOA to ensure that recyclers can continue to operate their businesses in the face of the figures used n TGN 7.01.

He said: The sooner that we are allowed to complete and publish the WRA fires storage document, the better for all concerned.