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Accepta Newsletter: Issue 6

Articles in issue 6:

• IPPC: Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control; a Practical Guide. *Free copies available from Accepta upon request*
• New web based e-Logbook software for effective facilities management.
• Environmentally friendly biocide for effective water disinfection.

For those industry sectors using high volumes of water, controlling and continually reducing the levels of effluent has always been an important commercial consideration. Even more so now with the introduction of the new IPPC, Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control regulations, a system which follows the European Community Directive (96/61) to introduce an improved, more integrated approach to controlling pollution from industrial sources.

What is IPPC?

The system of IPPC applies an integrated environmental approach to the regulation of certain industrial activities. This means that emissions to air, water (including discharges to sewer) and land, plus a range of other environmental effects, must be considered together. It also means that regulators must set permit conditions so as to achieve a high level of protection for the environment as a whole. These conditions are based on the use of the Best Available Techniques (BAT), which balances the costs to the operator against the benefits to the environment. IPPC aims to prevent emissions and waste production and where that is not practicable, reduce them to acceptable levels. IPPC also takes the integrated approach beyond the initial task of permitting, through to the restoration of sites when industrial activities cease.

The UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has produced an excellent practical guide to IPPC, to help those operating or regulating activities prescribed under the terms of the Pollution Prevention and Control (PPC) Regulations 2000. It describes the main provisions of IPPC and sets out the views of the Secretaries of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and for Wales (the Secretary of State) on how the system should be applied and how particular terms should be interpreted.

The Guide covers the following issues:

Overview of the regulatory process.
IPPC activities, installations, operators and non-IPPC landfills.
Timeframe for obtaining permits.
Permit applications.
Consultation on permit applications.
Determination of permit applications.
Management systems and operator competence.
Required standards and best available techniques (BAT).
Environmental quality standards, including EC requirements.
Changes to installations that have already been permitted.
Permit transfers.
Permit reviews.
Site assessment and restoration.
Special consideration for activities involving waste.
Checking and enforcing compliance.
Public registers and information.
Charging.
Appeals.
Indicative list of pollutants.
Factors to be considered in determining BAT.
EC environmental quality standards.

Get Your Free Copy of the Guide

To receive your free copy of the IPPC; Practical Guide please e-mail Accepta or call us on +44(0) 1625 267 581.

New Web Based e-Logbook Software for Effective Facilities Management

Accepta's innovative, web based e-logbook management system has been developed for the water treatment, water hygiene, property and facilities management sectors to assist those responsible for the effective operation and successful implementation of safety critical water hygiene and Legionella control systems. In addition to this, the e-logbook can also be easily adapted to manage similar safety critical property and facilities related activities in areas involving asbestos, indoor air quality and air monitoring, food hygiene, portable electrical appliance testing etc.

Improving Facilities Management Accepta's e-logbook software has been designed around a standard Windows format making it simple to install and easy to use with out the need for expensive hardware additions. Its benefits are considerable and include:

Maintain effective control: effectively manage complex safety critical activities on single or multiple sites from a central management control point. Improve lines of communication, roles, responsibilities and individual accountability.

Maximise management effectiveness: multiple sites, multiple suppliers, multiple activities are all managed using one easy to use system.

Maintain up to date records: rapidly upload new data remotely using the Internet or directly in to your network system, helping improve the timeliness, relevance and accuracy of time sensitive records. Data can be entered into the system from literally anywhere including the point of testing, home, office, car etc. using the Internet.

Identify problems quickly: an automatic 'red flag' facility highlights any 'out of time' activities, non-conformities etc. allowing potential problems to be identified quickly and remedial action to be taken promptly.

Complete audit trail: the system automatically records all data including system activity, access dates, test results, reports, corrective action etc. Full professional reports can easily be presented to external inspectors, Government officials, quality auditors etc.

Manage multiple user access: several levels of security allow password-controlled access to the management system by multiple users, including site managers, contractors, suppliers etc. This holistic approach improves data collection whilst maintaining overall system security.

Easily accessible management information: full system audits are easily carried out with summary data presented in either text, tabular or graphical formats.

Comprehensive support and training: full on and off-line support and training available.

Cost effective: one of the most efficient, cost effective, safety critical management solutions available today.

Additional Information

Accepta's innovative e-logbook software represents a new era in the effective control and management of safety critical property and facilities systems. For further information please email Accepta or simply call us on +44 (0) 1625 267 581.

Environmentally Friendly Biocide for Effective Water Disinfection

Accepta 8101 represents a new generation of safe, environmentally friendly biocides for the effective control of water borne micro-pathogens including Legionella, E.Coli, Pseudomonas, Cryptosporidium, Campylobacter, Salmonella, MRSA, VRE and other bacterial, viral and fungal infections, in the water systems of cooling towers, hospitals, hotels, industrial and office buildings, schools, swimming pools, spa's and Jacuzzi's.

It also offers a unique and complete bio-security solution for poultry, fruit and vegetable, beverage and meat and fish production.

What is Accepta 8101?

Accepta 8101 is a multi-component oxidising biocide utilising a stable combination of hydrogen peroxide and silver ions to form a highly effective sanitising solution. This synergistic combination is so effective it creates a biocide twenty times more powerful than that of hydrogen peroxide alone.

What are the Benefits?

Accepta 8101 offers the following benefits:

Environmentally friendly: its principal constituent; hydrogen peroxide, does not pollute, as it eventually breaks down into its original, non-polluting constituents, water and oxygen.

Extremely effective biocide: far more effective than Sodium Hypochlorite or Bromine.

Wide spectrum, no-gap biocide: sanitising disinfectant effective against all bacteria, viruses, fungi and algae, a simple 'one-stop' approach.

Destroys biofilm: unlike Bromine or Chlorine, Accepta 8101 removes the protection that bio-film affords to bacteria and viruses.

Long term effectiveness: has a long lasting residual effect in water and remains stable at high water/air temperatures; its effectiveness actually increases at high temperatures.

Simple application: easily dosed into the water supply, using a simple reliable dosing system.

Simple to monitor: product concentrations can be easily and accurately measured.

Safe: in its diluted state it does not cause irritation to the skin, eyes, and mucous membranes, nor is it toxic or have any carcinogenic or mutagenic effects.

Example Application: Combating Biofilm using Accepta 8101

Biofilm are bacterial communities that can appear almost anywhere, fouling machinery, clogging pipes, and contributing to many forms of human disease.
Researchers have found that biofilms play an important role in many medical conditions such as kidney stones, chronic ear and urinary tract infections and gum disease. Experts at the Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta in the USA now believe that biofilms are involved in 65% of all human bacterial infections. And roughly 5% of patients who annually receive catheters and stents develop serious infections from biofilms growing on the devices.

Biofilms can also be found in water filters, on the hulls of boats and in drinking water pipes, where they can do great harm.

Worldwide, industry spends about $7bn on toxic chemicals that are only partially successful in blocking this bacterial scum.

At the earliest stages, this strange thing called a biofilm is little more than a layer of cells attached to a surface. But as the bacteria grow and divide, something wondrously conspiratorial happens. When enough of them - a quorum - have gathered, they send signals around, telling each other to reorganize. They begin to arrange themselves into an array of pillars and mushroom shaped structures, all connected by convoluted channels that deliver food and remove waste. They become in effect a community, with its own defence and communication systems. As the biofilm matures, the bacteria become as much as 1,000 times more resistant to antibiotics and biocides than they were when they were separate. So once a biofilm takes hold, getting rid of it is tough, though not impossible.

Traditionally, it has been believed that dosing water services and supplies with a conventional biocide such as chlorine will keep it free of harmful and possibly life threatening bacteria and viruses. Unfortunately, this is simply not true!

Bacteria can penetrate systems in several ways, these bacteria, once inside the system are not easily dislodged. The bacteria then gravitate towards the surfaces of the water tanks and pipes, where nutrient levels of adsorbed organic molecules are at their richest. Owing to their small size, the bacteria could very easily be swept away in the water flowing through the system. To prevent this happening, they secrete a polysaccharide glue like substance that fixes them to the surfaces and enables them to pick out nutrients carried along in the water. This polysaccharide matrix is what makes up the biofilm - surrounding each bacterium in layers of slime and creating a miniature "Static pond" for it, safe from disruptive water currents.

The biofilm also acts as a barrier to biocides like chlorine, which react with its surface layers while letting the protected bacteria population grow unchecked, until they break out of the biofilm to cause disease and infection, such as an outbreak of Legionnaires disease. Fortunately, there is an answer to the problem created by biofilm. That answer is Accepta 8101.

Solutions of Accepta 8101 will penetrate biofilm and destroy the bacteria on contact.

The necessity of using powerful biocides for biofilm removal is illustrated in recent work, which demonstrated that it took four times as much bromide to destroy bacteria in biofilm as it took to destroy bacteria in water flow. Accepta 8101 can reduce bacteria levels to single figures, and more particularly it is very effective against Legionella, which can exist in systems even when the TVC water condition is well within accepted standards.

Its effectiveness against Legionella in both hot and cold systems will enable a building facility manager to provide safe water, even in systems which have difficulty in maintaining the 60°C level recommended. Dosing the system with Accepta 8101 can also prevent pipe corrosion caused by the co-existence of two quite different types of bacteria in the biofilm. The upper layers of biofilm are populated by aerobic bacteria, and the lower layers (lacking in oxygen) by anaerobic bacteria. This co-existence creates corrosion potential between the oxidising and reducing bacteria, resulting in the removal of pipe metal by natural electrolysis. Biofilm develops faster in plastic pipes than in metal pipes, as the biofilm will find nutrients in the organic content of the pipe.

Apart from its effectiveness in penetrating biofilm and killing the actual bacteria, solutions have a long residual level of disinfection. It is also less reactive than other biocides such as Chlorine or Ozone, which stay in the water for a significantly shorter period of time. By using solutions of Accepta 8101, protective levels of biocide can be maintained in water systems for 14 days or more and so provide protection during "Shut downs". The need to flush out systems or carry out Chlorinations prior to reopening can be eliminated.

Additional Information

For additional information please e-mail Accepta or call us on +44 (0) 1625 267 581.