Tom Pratt has worked as a laboratory analyst for SOCOTEC for the last four years, being responsible for managing the workload within the lab and ensuring that agreed turnaround times are met by allocating appropriate resources to each particular work stream. In this piece, Tom outlines his key responsibilities of his varied role, which ranges from quality control checks to laboratory tours.…
Denis Morgan has worked as a divisional technical manager within SOCOTEC’s Asbestos team for the last 18 years. In this blog, he discusses the various challenges he faces in his role, as well as outlining some of the highest profile projects he has worked on during the course of his career.…
Our annual event, the Railway Environmental Forum (REF), is around the corner once again, with only three weeks to go, we’re looking forward to welcoming delegates to discuss a range of health and safety-related topics, including legionella, asbestos, occupational air monitoring and the importance of health and safety-related training.…
While the use and production of new asbestos-containing materials (ACMs) has been banned in the UK since 1999, a large proportion of railway infrastructure still contains the fibrous mineral. Used in the construction and maintenance of trains and locomotive components, the fire retardant and insulating properties of asbestos made it an ideal material for lining carriage walls, lagging pipe work, brake pads, packing piston cylinders, boilers and heating systems. Prior to any planned building work on trains/buildings, duty holders are required to undertake a management, refurbishment or demolition survey, dependent on the nature of the construction taking place. These often require samples of ACMs to determine the extent of the risk of asbestos exposure. Specific procedures have therefore been put in place to ensure that each sample is analysed as accurately and precisely as possible.…
The health and safety responsibility and management of facilities in public sector buildings can fall across a number of varying roles. With more than 500,000 public buildings still estimated to contain asbestos today, the requirement to manage asbestos-containing materials (ACMs) remains a big responsibility for public sector managers.…
The risk of asbestos goes beyond the presence of Asbestos Containing Materials (ACMs) in buildings. Due to its strength and heat resistant properties, asbestos has been widely used in many products and objectives for hundreds of years.…
Up until its ban in 1999, asbestos was used widely for its insulating and fire resistant properties - with use in the rail industry no exception. Buildings in the rail sector as well as the train rolling stock were – and continue to be - commonplace for asbestos containing materials.!…
Cheap, durable and flexible with excellent insulation and fireproofing agents, asbestos was used extensively throughout the 1900s until its ban in 1999. Due to its popularity, asbestos containing materials (ACMs) can still be found in a wide range of locations, including those you may not even think of.…
With the HSE estimating that at least 5,000 people die every year from an asbestos-related cancer caused by exposure to asbestos fibres at work, raising awareness about asbestos exposure is still – if not more - as important now as ever before.…
The ports and docks of Great Britain have always been an important entry point for the materials and products that helped to build the country. Since 1940, it was through these docks and ports that saw the import of over 5,000,000 tonnes of raw asbestos fibre into the country.…
