We’re currently experiencing unprecedented levels of work owing to wider issues in the industry; namely several labs losing UKAS accreditation in their organics departments.

This unexpected influx of work is impacting our usually reliable service delivery. We’re working very hard to try and get ahead of work, but the reality is that currently we’re not able to reliably hit our usual 5-day turnaround.

As such we have taken the difficult decision to temporarily increase our standard turnaround to 7-days to better manage customer expectations.

Service delivery moving forward

We have acquired several new pieces of instrumentation which will allow us to increase our capacity and deliver a high standard of on time delivery. The process associated with accrediting new pieces of equipment, or methods, takes several months. This is a combination of procuring the equipment, validating upon arrival, and then consulting with our accrediting body (UKAS). In the interim, we can offer the use of these instruments on an unaccredited basis in order to speed up the delivery of work.

The instruments/methods are:

• PAHs: we have implemented a new GCMS to mirror those currently in use. It runs the identical methodology under the same conditions with no changes to levels of detection
• BTEX: we have an equivalent instrument and use the same methodology and operational criteria so no changes to detection limits will be seen
• Anions/Colorimetric Determinations including Chloride, Fluoride, Sulphate, TON, Nitrate, Nitrite, Ammoniacal Nitrogen, Hexavalent Chromium and Alkalinity: we have implemented a new automated technology which will combine several pre-existing colorimetric and Ion Chromatography methods. This type of discrete analyser is common within industry and represents an increase in capacity and improvement in most detection limits (see below)

In all methods we continue to operate under the wider accreditation of our ISO 17025 Quality management System. We will run all samples using the same quality assurance and quality control processes as we do for the accredited methods, and in the case of the PAH/BTEX running an identical methodology to that covered in our scope of accreditation. 

If you would like to discuss the opportunity of switching to unaccredited testing to maintain 5-day turnaround, please get in touch.

Known (and respected) for speaking his mind, our Technical Director doesn’t hold back in the January issue of AGS Magazine. Highlighting frustrations and concerns around obtaining ‘quality’ parts, Will suggests how this might be addressed and how suppliers could be held accountable in the future. Click below to read the full article.

AGS is a FREE magazine from the Association of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Specialists focusing on geotechnics, engineering geology and geoenvironmental engineering.

Chemtech Environmental’s WAC reports are designed to highlight when a value exceeds one of the limits provided by the standard. Below are some notes to enable you to understand how and why the numbers achieve a colour so that you can best interpret your results.

In the example below, there are two results where the 10:1 mg/kg value does not have any colour-coding active. Antimony has achieved a value below the limit of detection (LoD) which in turn is below the Inert Waste limit. Similarly, Arsenic has a result of 0.019 which is below the Inert Waste limit of 0.5, therefore the box does not change colour.

If there is a higher Antimony result, as per the report below, the box will change colour. With a 10:1 mg/kg result of 0.084, results have now exceeded the Inert Waste limit but are still within the threshold of Non-reactive Hazardous Waste, so the cell is highlighted in yellow to indicate the result is above the Inert Waste limit (also highlighted in yellow).

This same rule is applied with Non-reactive Hazardous Waste and Hazardous Waste. Once a limit has been exceeded, it will be colour-coded according to correspond with the heading above the limit values as demonstrated below.

Basically, a result will be coloured to the lowest of the threshold values exceeded. If it’s blank, then no breaches are recorded.

We provide this colour-coding system to all WAC reports by default but if you’re not a fan, we can turn it off too! Contact us at supportsquad@chemtech-env.co.uk or give us a call on 01207 528578 and we’ll get it sorted for you.

Cawood joined Ensign-Bickford Industries (EBI) last year as part of its Diagnostic Solutions Group. As part of the Cawood group we are looking forward to growing significantly and further expanding our capabilities and capacity with EBI’s support. With services spanning pet food science, space and defence, and diagnostic solutions, EBI is a global science and technology leader. To learn more about who they are and what they do, grab a brew and take 5 minutes to watch the video.