Liabilities
Generally in environmental law, the person or body responsible for a site is responsible for the environmental aspects of that site. Therefore, if a material escapes from your site and causes an environmental impact, then you, the operator of the site, are legally responsible for the consequences. Look closely at any activities which contractors are carrying out on your site and assess the environmental aspects and impacts, just as you do for the activities carried out by your employees.
For example, a pollution incident occurred when contractors at a cosmetics manufacturing site disposed of liquid waste from cleaning operations via the nearest drain. Although the company’s own employees may have known that the drain in the yard was connected to the nearby river rather than the sewerage system, no briefing was given to the cleaning contractors.
The waste, which contained oily materials and detergent, flowed out through an interceptor which was designed to capture only materials which were immiscible in water. The detergent allowed the oil and water to mix and so defeated the interceptor. The polluting material caused the death of several hundred fish in a nearby stream and the company which ran the site was prosecuted by the Environment Agency.
Briefing the contractors and explaining the working of the drainage system and interceptor would have prevented the release and avoided the resultant prosecution.
(See emissions to water)
Normal, abnormal and emergency
ISO 14001 specifies that organisations must consider the environmental aspects and impacts from ‘normal, abnormal and emergency’ situations. This is especially relevant when looking at potential environmental problems arising from work carried out by contractors.
Many ‘normal’ operations can be carried out by contractors, for example, day-to-day cleaning activities. However, in some circumstances, companies engage contractors on standby contracts in case of emergencies.
For example, companies which store large quantities of oil and recognise that they have a risk of causing a large-scale water pollution incident can engage the services of oil clean-up specialists on a standby basis.
The ‘intermediate’ state, where activities only happen infrequently (called ‘abnormal’ in ISO14001), is often overlooked. This means that companies may be vulnerable to a failure in environmental compliance when contractors are carrying out ‘abnormal’ work on their behalf.
For example, a bulk delivery of an environmentally hazardous material which only occurs once or twice a year could be regarded as ‘abnormal’. The environmental aspects of the process are significantly changed whilst the contractor is on site making the delivery. Similarly, a major cleaning or redecorating operation may only occur every few years. During this process, there may be major movements of waste materials, solvents or paint. Unless the ‘host’ organisation has worked together with the contractors to identify potential environmental impacts and counter them, problems may occur.
Work carried out by contractors needs the same attention to detail as any other operation carried out in an organisation.