Our team excels in managing the clean-up of hazardous incidents, leveraging years of experience from handling significant events across Australia.
Acting as a Second Responder, we mobilise to site following the initial make-safe and containment works by emergency personnel, to safely de-risk and assist with the restoration of the site.
Our experience over the years has enabled us to develop in-house, regulator-endorsed risk management controls to mitigate the unique, intractable and often unprecedented hazardous wastes encountered. With our capability in managing all nine classes of Dangerous Goods, we have been engaged by insurers, site owners, regulators and underwriters across a range of complex hazardous waste scenarios.
Some of the incidents we have managed as a Second Responder include:
- Fires such as those associated with chemicals, lithium-ion batteries, and e-waste,
- Buildings containing asbestos damaged and destroyed by fire,
- Spills of chemicals and dangerous goods into the environment,
- Chemical and dangerous goods stockpiles such as those associated with abandoned waste oil refineries, battery recyclers and orphan wastes,
- Illegal chemical and dangerous goods burials and waste dumps.
We safely manage the residual hazards on site, ensuring the ongoing protection of environmental and human health. Our process involves regular hazard assessments, determining the type and extent of contamination, creating safe handling procedures with regulators and stakeholders, reducing waste risks, overseeing waste collection and segregation, treating and disposing of hazardous wastes, and recovering valuable metals and resources.
Chemical, Battery and E-Waste Fires
Australia is experiencing rapid growth in battery storage technology, which, poses significant fire safety challenges. The widespread use of lithium-ion batteries, valued for their high energy capacity, has led to a notable increase in battery-related fires. According to NSW EPA, it is estimated in Australia there are between 10,000-12,000 battery fires per year.
Rob Murray, our Operation Manager for Remediation in VIC/TAS, details, “To safely manage battery fires, a comprehensive process of risk control is required to ensure reliable and efficient delivery. Risk reduction and management is key in what we do.”
Asbestos Fires
With a changing climate, we are seeing bushfire seasons in Australia starting earlier and lasting longer, resulting in widespread fires that damage property and infrastructure.
Since 2020, Enviropacific has delivered the remediation of more than 250 properties impacted by fire-damaged asbestos. Across the Black Summer Bushfires in NSW and Victoria, the 2024 Western Victoria Bushfires, and a number of metropolitan fires involving asbestos clad buildings, we have honed our expertise in managing the high-risk environment created by fire-damaged asbestos.
Asbestos quickly contaminates the residual building fabric during a fire, turning friable and shattering and spalling under extreme temperatures, challenging the typical demolition and fire clean-up process. Amongst our capabilities, we have developed approaches to decontaminate, wash and recover non-porous materials from asbestos impacted fires, delivering safe outcomes across entire communities and allowing rebuilding to commence.
Saverio Bonacci, our Project Manager for Remediation in VIC/TAS, shares, “With our expertise in managing asbestos-impacted bushfire debris, our team was proud to play a vital role in rebuilding bushfire-devastated communities across Australia. Our involvement in the East Gippsland and Grampians Bushfire Remediation Programs was an incredibly rewarding experience.”
Environmental Spill Remediation
Our remediation and water capabilities along with our hazardous waste treatment facilities, we are able to support environmental spills as a Second Responder, returning the environment to its pre-spill condition and validating the clean-up efforts. Our teams possess a detailed understanding of the visual and olfactory signals to chase contamination as a result of a spill and utilise third party sampling and analysis to further confirm the remediation efforts have been adequate.
Jason Cole, our Project Director for Remediation in QLD/NT/WA, explains, “Our teams have not only delivered land and water remediation services for numerous environmental spill sites, but we have also expanded the services to our clients to rectify or replace downstream stormwater and sewer systems impacted by the original spill.”
In the recent past, our team was engaged to undertake remediation of the secondary sources of contamination from an onsite chemical spill at a facility, in Brisbane. The spill caused the dispersion of PFAS-containing Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF) into the immediate and neighbouring environment.
Our team was involved in the clearing and grubbing of vegetation, cleaning of sediment from culverts and stormwater infrastructure, excavation and offsite disposal of 1000T of PFAS contaminated soil, mulch, concrete and tree stumps, removal and replacement of stormwater infrastructure, replacement of removed soil with clean fill, and replanting of vegetation.
Illegal Waste Burials and Dangerous Goods Stockpiles
A number of large-scale waste burial dumps, orphan waste stockpiles, and abandoned waste processing facilities have emerged in recent years, requiring careful assessment and de-risking. Posing a high risk to the community and environment, these sites are sensitive and often very public, requiring extensive community and stakeholder consultation.
Luke Cattanach, our Regional Operations Manager for Remediation in VIC/TAS, details, “We have worked closely with Government Agencies and local communities on a number of complex projects to clean up illegal chemical dumps and abandoned storage facilities to remove imminent risks to human health and the environment.”
As we continue to expand capabilities, innovate methodologies and collaborate with various stakeholders to manage hazardous incidents, we remain dedicated to our mission of creating safer environments and sustainable communities.
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