Cadogans Legionella control

Understanding your statutory responsibilities. For all Building owners and those responsible for buildings. Check out Page 9 of the link below. http://issuu.com/potion/docs/ywz_mag_p1-76_online_b?mode=mobile

Cadogans congratulates Borders General Hospital on its 2011 SEPA compliance rating

© Copyright Walter Baxter and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons Licence

Cadogans offers its congratulations to a client of nearly 20 years standing - Borders General Hospital (BGH) - which operates a clinical waste incinerator burning clinical and domestic waste at a hospital in Melrose, Scottish Borders.

SEPA (Scottish Environment Protection Agency), which polices incinerators in Scotland, has recently released its ‘findings for the calendar year of 2011’ and awarded BGH an Excellent status.  (see http://tinyurl.com/c4nynj3 for further details).

The assessment covers many areas from chimney emission levels through maintenance and training to reporting of details of operation.  Extensive record keeping has to be in place. These are checked and future developments are assessed during site inspections three or four times a year.

Cadogans have been heavily involved with the incinerator from the point 19 years ago when we first assessed the amount of waste that was generated in the (then) Borders Health Board area. 

Cadogans’ Alan Carruthers comments:

“As record keeping was very different in those days this meant we undertook the fun job of manually weighing the bags of clinical waste each day and investigating salient factors such as bed occupancy to obtain realistic potential demand figures”.

A specification and tender document was then written and various offers from incinerator manufacturers/suppliers received.  The most attractive financially and technically was from Evans Universal (now Facultatieve Technologies).  Manufacturing, installation, commissioning and testing took the best part of a year. Since 1995 the incinerator has continued to burn clinical waste without significant interruption.

The site was granted a Pollution Prevention and Control (PPC) Part A permit in November 2005. The installation is permitted to incinerate up to 125kg of waste in any one hour.

Alan noted that:

“The day to day operation of the incinerator is by the operators and management of the hospital and so they deserve great credit for gaining an ‘excellent’ from SEPA.  Cadogans assists with ad hoc technical advice and by preparing the numerous plans and reports that are demanded for environmental compliance. Less strenuous than weighing bags for a week but far more technically onerous!”

Although the incinerator and related waste heat boiler and gas scrubber are advancing in years regular maintenance and investment from the NHS keeps them in good condition and able to dispose of the waste from the Borders area.  The steam generated by the waste heat boiler displaces steam raised by the adjacent conventional boilers and feeds into the hospital main.

For information on how Cadogans could help your organisation with its environmental compliance contact Alan Carruthers or Daphne Wassermann.

 

 

Published articles

A number of our experts have been busy writing articles on a  range of Engineering and Health and Safety related topics, these have been uploaded to our website at http://www.cadogans.com/resources/cadogans-articles-and-technical-papers/

The topics range from thoughts about Health and Safety both in initial design and in construction sites when designs are being implemented, the dangers of compressed gas as well as some structural views on concrete and some comment on the difference between experts practicing in England and Scotland.

The full list of articles is:

Who is responsible for Health and Safety on a Construction Site?
by William O'Britis published in the Solicitors Group Personal Injury e-scribe series, August 2012.

Compressed Gas Beware
Article by Daphne Wassermann published in the Solicitors Group Personal Injury e-scribe series, June 2012.

Personal Injury - The Impact of Design on Health and Safety
by Karen McNeill published in the Solicitors Group Personal Injury e-scribe series, April 2012.

Safe and Sound - how safe are building sites?
by David McIntyre, printed in Claims Magazine, March 2012

High Strength Concrete: Getting it Right
by Dr Rajen Lavingia, published in Your Witness Magazine, June 2011.

Scotland v England, the Experts View
by Dr John McCullough, published in Your Witness magazine, Spring 2011.

If you have any comments then please let us know.