Transfer station fire

BCB Environmental has gone into administration after suffering a devastating fire that completely destroyed its' hazardous waste transfer station at Tockwith, York.

It is the second serious fire at the site.  An earlier blaze in October 2008, which was the result of an arson attack, led to the company being fined £40,000 for failures under the Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmospheres (DSEAR) Regulations.  The fine was reduced to £15,000 on appeal in March this year.

This latest incident marks the end of a 12 year journey for BCB Environmental, which had become one of the UKs biggest hazardous waste transfer operators and amongst the first to receive an Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) permit under the former PPC regime - although it wasn't always well run, receiving an EP OPRA score "E" (very poor) for permit compliance in 2005.

Fortunately, nobody was injured in the fire which ripped through the site on 11 August 2010.

Due to the intense heat, the cause of the fire is unlikely to be discovered.  Investigations into a similarly disastrous blaze at the former P&R Disposal Services transfer station in St Helens in 2001 failed to pinpoint what started the fire.

Sadly, it is possible that poorly described waste in drums or other receptacles may have been at the root of these two incidents: waste producers often do not fully understand the composition of their chemical wastes - particularly mixtures and solutions - and therefore fail to declare the presence of potentially reactive substances.  When mixed with incompatible materials in common transfer station "bulking" processes, these wastes can trigger runaway reactions that go undetected until it is too late.

Poorly stored waste batteries are often also a factor in incidents like these - particularly where waste producers mix several different types of batteries together in metal outer containers, causing them to short-circuit.  Poor storage of lithium batteries is believed to have started the fire at Veolia's hazardous waste transfer station in Preston in July 2007 which landed them with a £240,000 fine - again for DSEAR failures.

The Environment Agency has served BCB Environmental with an Anti-Pollution Works Notice to enforce the clean-up of the site.  The notice requires the company to remove and dispose of polluting matter from the site and prevent further polluting matter from entering Fleet Beck, the Agency said.

Although the company has entered administration, the Agency has made it clear that the clean-up operations remain the responsibility of BCB Environmental, the administrator and the landlord at the site.

This points to the need for businesses that store and process hazardous materials to have robust emergency procedures in place that, in particular, prevent or minimise the loss of polluting matter to the environment in the event of a fire.