Everything You Need to Know About Chemical Spills

01 February 2022 by CSG

Despite procedures to mitigate the risk of spills and leaks, accidents can still occur. What should you do when this happens to protect employees and prevent pollutants from escaping your site?

Chemical spills have the potential to cause much harm, for example:

• disruption to your business operation, and also neighbouring areas

• harm employees and other people near the spill, through contact with the hazardous material or through inhalation

• pollute the environment with toxic gases or liquids entering waterways, air or ground.

As a business or organisation, it is your responsibility to prevent pollution. The Environment Agency has increased efforts to punish organisations polluting the environment. Failure to prevent pollution can result in large fines or up to five years in prison.

Minimise risks and plan for emergencies

It is advised to have an emergency response plan in place before an incident occurs. It is usually part of most businesses risk assessment. Having an emergency response plan not only minimises the risk for accidents happening but also prepares people on how to act when the incident has occurred.

Furthermore, having a well-planned emergency response plan might help your businesses insurance premiums. Certain awards, certifications, and accreditations use emergency response plans as an assessment criteria.

CSG’s experienced consultants will help you conduct a risk assessment. We will work together with you to implement a plan that will minimise the risk of spills at your site. Finally, we ensure that in the event of an incident you have the equipment necessary to contain the spill.

We also offer an intensive one-day training to provide your employees with the skills and confidence to contain and clean up spills.

Dealing with chemical spills

When an incident occurs, the first thing to do is to ensure the people near the spill are safe.

Many chemicals have hazardous properties that might cause immediate harm, to both people and property. You should therefore minimise the number of people near the spill. Or in the event of a fire or toxic gas evacuate the area. If necessary, call 999 for the fire brigade or ambulance.

Next, if possible, identify the components of the spilt substance. This is to assess potential risks and to respond with the correct equipment. Different Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and spill kits might be necessary depending on the components of the spill. A standard spill kit consists of: wheelie bin or other bin, absorbents socks, absorbent cushions, absorbent pads, disposal bags and ties and PPE.

Informing your dedicated chemical spill clean-up company is essential for a quick response. CSG offers a nationwide 24/7 emergency response every day of the year, and you can sign up to our Emergency Hotline today.

If it is safe to do so, you should try to contain the spills of hazardous or chemical materials. This can be through temporary diking, sandbags, dry sand or absorbent pads.

CSG quickly responds to hazardous spills with our fleet of specialist vehicles. We will bring spill kits and absorbents to contain the spread.

Once contained, cleaning the site and removing hazardous materials can begin. Where appropriate, washing and cleaning the area with large quantities of water will remove any residue.

CSG’s fleet has specialist equipment to clean up the site, such as jetters. If necessary, our tankers will take away any excess water.

Any materials used to contain or clean up the spill should be removed from your site and transported for safe disposal or further treatment.

CSG has the UK’s largest licensed treatment facility. This enables us to recover and recycle as many materials and substances as possible. Waste that we are unable to recover is sent for safe disposal or incineration.

Post-Spill Analysis

After a chemical spill has been contained and removed from your premises, you should conduct a post-spill investigation. This is part of your due diligence to assess possible damages to the environment. It is a legal requirement to take action to restore any damages to the environment.

CSG offers a post-spills investigation carried out by experienced consultants. It includes necessary tests like soil sampling and site remediation.  We will provide you with a report and give you recommendations for removing residue contamination or pollution.

Complete Chemicals Spills Responses with CSG

You can rest assured that with CSG’s end-to-end spillage solutions.

CSG offers bespoke spillage services tailored to your organisation’s needs. This includes:

  • experienced consultants assessing what potential spill risks you might need to prepare for
  • intensive one-day courses on how to deal with, control and clean up spillages.
  • a large range of chemical spill kits, suitable to tackle large and small spills, both inside or outside.
  • 24/7 emergency response with vans and tankers to assist you with controlling and cleaning up chemical spills
  • post-spill analysis and investigation, including soil sampling and site remediation.