The UK Health & Safety Executive (HSE) have published a good practice guidance document The safe recovery of petrol from end-of-life vehicles, in association with the end-of-life vehicle (ELV) industry. It provides advice on the safe removal, storage and disposal of petrol from vehicles that are being disposed of in accordance with the End-of-Life Vehicle Directive.

This guidance contains general advice for vehicle dismantlers that, if followed, will mean that you are normally doing enough to comply with the relevant health and safety legislation. Under health and safety law, all employers are required to carry out site-specific risk assessments to ensure the actual hazards and circumstances prevailing at their premises are properly considered, and that appropriate control measures are put in place.

This guidance will help in assessing the risks arising from handling and storing petrol and it also gives advice on how to control those risks.

This guidance deals with the fire and explosion hazards arising from the extraction and storage of petrol from ELVs, and its subsequent disposal through reuse or collection by an authorised waste disposal company. This guidance is mainly aimed at large-scale facilities and does not cover manual extraction procedures using a pick and bucket, which are generally considered to be unsuitable methods for both safety and environmental reasons. Some parts of the guidance will be relevant to low-throughput/small-scale activities, where petrol is withdrawn from existing fuel tank openings using conventional equipment such as ‘‘fuel retrievers‘‘.

The guidance does not cover other safety hazards arising from work with ELVs or the health hazards arising from petrol and other materials found in motor vehicles. Guidance on health and other safety hazards can be found in the documents listed in the reference section. 5 This guidance does not include measures to protect the environment from petrol or petrol vapours that may be released from ELVs. The Environment Agency and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency have published separate guidance1 dealing with environmental concerns and requirements.

The recovery and handling of other fuels, such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), compressed natural gas (CNG), and explosive devices used to inflate air bags, are outside the scope of this guidance. The guidance is not specifically aimed at diesel fuel although the same standards that are used for petrol can be applied to the removal and storage of diesel. Where diesel fuel is likely to be contaminated or mixed with petrol it should be handled and stored according to the recommendations in this guidance.

This guidance does not cover the hazards associated with working with petrol in the motor vehicle repair industry. Advice on this is provided in the HSE leaflet Safe use of petrol in garages.

All new installations should be designed and operated according to this guidance and, as far as reasonably practical, it should be followed at existing installations. However, it is not intended to preclude the use of alternative designs, materials and methods as long as they provide an equivalent level of safety and meet the requirements of the regulations.