Whale blasts regs
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• The recently-imposed regulations covering the construction of vacuum tankers for the carriage of wastes will cost £10 million to implement, claims Michael Fisher, managing director of Whale Tankers.
As a consistent critic of the Health and Safety Executive's approach, Fisher says "The benefit will be nil because the regulations are misdirected, incomplete and impractical to enforce".
He claims that the HSE has failed to recognise that the main dangers associated with vacuum waste tankers arise from the lack of adequate maintenance and corrosion monitoring, rather than design.
"Natural conclusions to be drawn from the few serious injuries caused by misuse are disregarded while elaborate and expensive safeguards have been drawn up against incidents that have never been experienced," says Fisher. There are about 2,000 vacuum tankers in current use. Each year there is an average of 1.8 deaths caused by spillage during loading and discharge. None are attributed to dangerous substances carried in waste tankers. Operator misuse is the cause.
"Improved safety could and should have been secured" says Fisher "by making all manufacturers and operators take out specified types of product and public liability insurance". This would lead to the insurers determining the standards for design, construction and maintenance, he claims, while the objective of the HSE is the creation of regulations.
It is estimated that compliance with the regulations and subsequent SI 1059 inspection and testing requirements will increase running costs by about £55 per day.