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Revised Bunding Guidelines

It is over five years since Environmental Efficiency published the first edition of the Good Bunding Guidelines.

These guidelines were published following a survey which found that many of the bunds in Ireland failed the basic water retention test. The Good Bunding Guidelines were produced by Environmental Efficiency to help IPPC and waste licensed facilities understand the requirements for effective bunding.

Interest in this document has been considerable with many enquires from Britain and Northern Ireland. As a result, Environmental Efficiency have completely rewritten the guidelines, made reference to the latest legislation and have included new sections on testing of bunds, identification of construction type - plus examples of bund failure.

These guidelines are particularly relevant to site managers in Northern Ireland where the requirement to bund all oil containers of over 200 litres is mandatory since the start of 2011. This now brings Northern Ireland legislation into line with that of Britain.

The most common cause of bunds failing the standard water retention test is the use of block built bunds rather than reinforced mass concrete as required by BS8007 and CIRIA 163.

This is because block built bunds have poor water tightness due to the porous nature of the blocks and leakage between the blocks (see picture left).

In addition, block built bunds are prone to cracking with ground heave.

Most site environmental managers accept that block built bunds perform poorly.

However, their difficulty is to identify which bunds are block built as often the blocks are hidden by a render of concrete.

This has now been addressed in the revised Good Bunding Guidelines with a section on identification of the bund construction type.

For copies of the Good Bunding Guidelines, contact -
Environmental Efficiency
Tel: 01 276 1428
Email: [email protected].

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