Is your company spill ready?
27 March 2023 by CSG
Businesses don’t think it will happen to them – but, as the saying goes: fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
Only about five per cent of businesses have a good spills plan in place – which means a shocking 95 per cent don’t.
But if a spill does happen, then your business could face a clean-up bill running into hundreds of thousands of pounds.
There’s also the risk of harm to employees to worry about, not to mention increasing insurance premiums, the cost of business interruption and the reputation of the organisation.
In the most extreme cases, failure to prevent pollution can result in five years in prison.
Not having a spills plan is not worth the risk.
Our emergency response team is often called upon to clean up spillages, but by the time they arrive they often find errors have been made, which, at best, have not improved the situation, or at worst, have exacerbated it.
Our fleet of specialist vehicles are ready to respond quickly to both hazardous and non-hazardous spills and we carry on-board spill kits, absorbents and equipment that contain and clean up the spill to prevent environmental contamination.
We can remove solids and organic materials from the wastewaters, which means the business is compliant with their discharge permit and can continue production operations during the clean-up.
If we are called to tackle river pollution, we can install booms to contain the spill to and will also remove any contaminated vegetation.
In the case of flooding, our specialist teams will tanker away the excess water quickly and efficiently.
Once we have contained a spill, we carry out a detailed post-spill investigation as part of the due diligence to assess possible damages to the environment.
One of our recent call-outs was to a delivery company that had suffered a fuel spill from its boiler, which resulted in 10,000 litres of diesel soaking into the ground.
It took us six months to clean up the site, compounded by the fact the spill ran into a local river. It cost the company an eye-watering £400,000.
Admittedly, the spill might have happened anyway, but had the company had appropriate planning measures in place, it could have been contained faster and more effectively.
At the other end of the spectrum, a well-prepared business will have a sufficient spills protocol and a plan in place and our specialists will already have visited to assess the site, the materials and chemicals being used and the potential risks.
When this happens, it means as soon as we get an emergency call, we can provide expert advice over the phone immediately, even before the team gets to the site.
Preparation was key when the Port of London Authority, which covers 95 miles of the River Thames, experienced an oil spill from a barge that sank, potentially threatening the health of the river.
We were called immediately to lead on the clean-up operation and our rapid response spills management team arrived within the hour, assessed the situation and began to deal with the spill straight away.
We removed more than 60 tonnes of contaminated water and the polluted water was sent to our specialised oil treatment plant and transfer station for processing.
It’s absolutely central to our ethos that we work in partnership with our customers and provide them with ongoing support and robust reporting that meets all environmental, financial and legal requirements.
We’re ready to help you: we provide a 24/7 response 365 days a year.
Contact us on 0800 011 6600 to find out more information or fill out the form here.
