Warning About PCBs In Work Equipment

The Environment Agency is encouraging businesses to check they comply with the law if they own equipment manufactured before 1987.

This is because such equipment may contain polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which are man-made organic chemicals that pose a major threat to human health and the environment.

There are 209 different PCB compounds and they have been widely used by manufacturers because they are chemically inert, stable at high temperatures and flame resistant. However, they pose a threat to the environment because of their toxicity, persistence and tendency to bio-accumulate (once they are in the environment or in animals or humans it is very difficult to get rid of them).

PCBs are classed as Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) and, although production is now banned, they remain, particularly, in older electrical equipment, wire/cable coatings and insulation.

Equipment that may contain PCBs includes electrical transformers, power factor capacitors, vacuum pumps, electrical resistors, fluorescent light ballasts and hospital diagnostic equipment.

Contaminated equipment is covered by regulations if it contains at least five litres of PCB substance or mixture and this must be registered with the Environment Agency. Registration has to be renewed each year until the item has been disposed of or decontaminates to 50ppm or less, then deregistered.

Because PCBs are fire-resistant, they've been used widely in electrical equipment, as fluids in electrical capacitors and transformers.
They were also used in wire/cable coatings and in insulation. Using PCBs to make these products is now banned.

The PCB regulations require any equipment that could contain PCBs to be treated as if it definitely contains PCBs unless you have proof otherwise.  Equipment that may contain PCBs includes:

• electrical transformers
• power factor capacitors
• heat transfer equipment
• pole-mounted transformers
• process heating equipment
• vacuum pumps
• high temperature hydraulic systems
• electrical resistors
• bushings and other high voltage equipment
• fluorescent light ballasts
• hospital diagnostic equipment

The Agency's Chemical Compliance Team can be contacted via pcb-enquiries@environment-agency.gov.uk

Full compliance details can be found here The legislation covering PCBs can be found here

Source: Croners / Environment Agency

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