The BGA promotes high standards of expertise in the geomembrane industry through training
The British Geomembrane Association is the trade association for membrane installers and manufacturers who operate in the landfill, containment and ground gas sectors.
Its standards are promoted throughout the industry to ensure that members of the British Geomembrane Association are recognised as the best providers of geomembrane services.
The BGA began its journey into training and qualifications back in the 1990’s.
It was recognised within the UK geomembrane industry that there was a great deal of variation in the quality of welding personnel on landfill sites.
Some companies had very good in-house training schemes, while others provided very little formal training or guidance.
Geomembrane welding scheme
For this reason, the British Geomembrane Association began talks with the TWI, to develop a comprehensive geomembrane welding scheme to be incorporated into their TWI CSWIP certification scheme.
Although it took the TWI and the BGA many hundreds of man-hours, over four years, to develop the CSWIP certification scheme for geomembrane welders, the owners of all landfill sites in the UK can now be totally confident that the welding carried out on their sites is of a consistently high quality.
The CSWIP scheme, which follows the British Standard BS EN 13067, requires that a welder must have at least two years industrial experience in the relevant welding technique(s) before they can take the examination.
The examination package is run over two days, and the examination itself, which takes place on the second day, is divided into theoretical and practical tests. The candidate must pass both to be awarded a certificate, achieving at least 80% in a 20 multiple-choice paper and producing a welded test piece with minimum required properties.
The Environment Agency agreed to specify that, from April 2004, on all landfill sites in the UK, at least two crew members must be accredited to BS EN 13067 and all other crew members (except for a maximum of one trainee) must be accredited to the CSWIP Entry Level.
After the success of the geomembrane welding scheme, the UK Geomembrane Industry became concerned about the professionalism of the companies that were working on landfill sites.
Company Accreditation Scheme
With the assistance of the TWI and backing from the Environment Agency, a comprehensive Company Accreditation Scheme was developed by the British Geomembrane Association to provide an auditable system of accreditation for installers of geomembrane liners for environmental protection.
The scheme covers all environmental protection projects using geosynthetic liners, including geomembranes and Geosynthetic clay liners.
The Environment Agency insists that companies carrying out containment works where geomembranes are used must be accredited, or be working towards being accredited, to the British Geomembrane Accreditation scheme for geomembrane installers.
In the 2000’s there were similar concerns about the quality of workmanship when installing ground gas membranes.
Gas Membrane Installation NVQ
The BGA was instrumental in developing the National Occupational Standard for Gas Membrane Installation and then the development of the Gas Membrane Installation National Vocational Qualification (NVQ).
In addition, the British Geomembrane Association identified and developed the first gas membrane installation assessors and has continually promoted the uptake of NVQs across the industry.
Independently audited company accreditation scheme
Responding to concerns about the professionalism of the companies designing and installing gas membrane systems, the British Geomembrane Association developed, with the TWI, an independently audited system of accreditation for gas membrane installer companies.
After eight years of development, the scheme’s development was completed in late 2021 and launched in early 2022.
The independently audited company accreditation scheme was the first such scheme for the gas membrane industry.
Not just a training and qualification-based organisation the BGA is an industry voice on behalf of its members, to forward their interests and raise awareness of their professionalism.
Our work includes responding to consultations, lobbying on key topics, working with government departments, participating in strategic working groups and contributing to the development of industry standards.
Our members also directly receive regular updates on issues and news relevant to their industry to keep them up to date and informed.
