200th MCERTS Product Conformity Certificate issued

Oct 10 2012

The 200th MCERTS certificate has been recently awarded to Hach Lange Ltd for the Hach BioTector B7000 TOC Analyzer.

The certificate, issued by CSA-Sira Certification and officially awarded to Hach Lange by Paul Wiggins of the Environment Agency, marks a significant milestone in the development of MCERTS, with the 200 MCERTS certificates issued to date covering measuring systems for air and water emissions, as well as environmental data acquisition software.

From a strategic perspective Matthew Dillon, UK & Ireland Sales Director at HACH LANGE said, “One of our key goals is to ensure that our customers are able to generate the highest quality data and we see the MCERTS scheme as an important contributor to that goal. At HACH LANGE we aim to offer the widest range of MCERTS products on the market; we already have a good number of certificates and we currently have a variety of products undergoing MCERTS evaluation. These include the SC1000 Digital Controller with sensors for pH, dissolved oxygen, ammonium and turbidity, and portable devices such as the HQD range of electrochemical instruments for pH, conductivity and dissolved oxygen.”

In the past, the Environment Agency conducted a large amount of industrial environmental monitoring, but in recent years this responsibility has shifted to the process operators themselves, and the MCERTS scheme is helping to ensure that the quality of monitoring remains high. Nevertheless, Matthew Dillon, commented, “As a manufacturer we invest heavily in the development of instruments and analysers that are robust, reliable, accurate and simple to use. However, it is extremely important that the recommended maintenance and calibration procedures are followed assiduously (and our service team can help with that, if necessary) because failure to do so would threaten the quality of data and would not be acceptable to the Agency. To further support the quality of monitoring, HACH LANGE regularly runs training workshops and can provide personal competence training for key staff so that users are able to obtain optimal performance from their HACH LANGE instruments.”

The Environment Agency’s MCERTS scheme, operated by CSA-Sira, has been a success due to a number of factors including support from industry and manufacturers of monitoring equipment. It provides a framework for process operators and the regulator to work within, and a clear benchmark of acceptability for monitoring data.

Paul Wiggins, Environment Agency, commented “A contributor to the success of MCERTS is the flexibility that the scheme allows. A certification committee is assigned to each project, ensuring the evidence submitted by the manufacturer is technically robust. This route allows for the use of existing test data and for in-house data to be used when witnessed and verified by CSA-Sira. Field trials can also be conducted on existing installations reducing timescales and cost.”

The first MCERTS performance standard was published nearly 15 years ago. The considerable development of MCERTS since this point can be seen below:

2012	200th MCERTS Product Conformity Certificate issued
MCERTS standard for Radioanalytical testing of Environmental & waste waters
2011	3500 certificates issued to water utility sites and 300 certificates issued to industrial sites under the Self Monitoring of Effluent Flow scheme
2009	Operator Monitoring Assessment (V3) for Air & Water
2008	Performance standard for Environmental Data Management Software
Performance standard for Sampling and Chemical Testing of Water
MCERTS Personnel - 1000th person registered on scheme
2007	EN15267-3 standard for Continuous Emission Monitoring Systems
2005	MCERTS Personnel - 500th person registered on scheme
2004	Self Monitoring of Effluent Flow Scheme launched
Performance standard for Continuous Ambient Air Monitoring Systems (CAMS)
2003	Performance standards for Continuous Water Monitoring Systems - Automatic water samplers, online analysers & flowmeters
MCERTS standard for Chemical Testing of Soil
2000	MCERTS Personnel Scheme launched for Manual Stack Monitoring
1998	First MCERTS Standard published; Performance standard for Continuous Emission Monitoring Systems (CEMS)

All MCERTS standards are freely downloadable from www.mcerts.net

The full article can be downloaded here

CSA-Sira; Tel: Emily Jarvis +44 (0)1244 670 920
Email: info@siracertification.com
Web: www.siraenvironmental.com

Footnote:
If you are a manufacturer of MCERTS equipment and would like CSA-Sira to feature your product range and the impact MCERTS certification has had to your organisation, please contact CSA-Sira at info@siracertification.com