SAFETY
Page 26
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H SE CHECKS WASTE • The Health and Safety Executive has completed its investigation into a waste tanker incident at Portswood, Southampton, on 15 January in which a quantity of dangerous chemical liquid waste was spilled.
The investigation showed that the accident was caused by inadvertent interference with the discharge ball valve, allowing the ball and its seatings to fall out of the valve body with the loss of a substantial proportion of the tanker content. This occurred while preparations were being made to repair the delivery pipe.
The valve was of a type which consists of a housing containing loose seatings on either side of a ball. In the event of attachments to the housing being removed the seatings and the ball may be released, allowing the liquid behind the valve to escape — and this characteristic is not immediately apparent from an external examination.
The HSE advises all tanker operators to check with their suppliers to ensure that valves with this feature are identified and to ensure that advice is given to their drivers and their maintenance staff about this hazard.
In general HSE advise that repairs should not be carried out on tankers while they contain hazardous materials, but if this is unavoidable careful checks should he made before any work is attempted.
Codes of practice for waste tankers and chemical tankers are now in an advanced stage of preparation and it is intended that these codes will be formally approved by the Health and Safety Commission under Section 16 of the Health and Safety at Work Act which will give them formal legal status.