New hazard guidelines
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• Hazardous goods hauliers will be expected to send specialist engineers to chemical incidents within three hours following guidelines issued this week by the Chemical Industries Association (CIA).
The change has the backing of the Road Haulage Association and represents a "major enhancement" of the chemical industry's response to chemical accidents in the UK, says the CIA.
Under the new voluntary code for the CIA's 180 chemical makers, manufacturers can ask hauliers to provide engineers to deal with problems such as leaking tank valves and to provide a 24-hour communication link with a haulage senior manager in order to help deal with incidents.
Hauliers will also be expected to know how to get hold of suitable clean-up kits for the chemicals they carry and use an alio
cated waste disposal company for larger problems.
The revised Ch emsafe scheme has the backing of firefighters and chief police officers, the Health and Safety Executive and reflects the increase of contract hauliers rather than in-house operations in the chemicals market.
"Haulage rates will have to reflect these changes," says CIA products stewardship senior executive, Dr Andy Robinson.