Ep. 9: The DG industry, regulations, incidents and events with AIDGC president Jason Costa

In this episode of Chemical Safety at Work, we sit down with Jason Costa, President of the Australasian Institute of Dangerous Goods Consultants (AIDGC) and a risk engineer at Riskcon Engineering. 

Jason shares his journey into dangerous goods consulting, insights on hazardous chemical management, and the importance of industry standards. 

We also dive into recent case studies and discuss emerging risks, such as lithium-ion battery fires. 

Whether you're a safety officer or work with hazardous materials, this episode is packed with valuable takeaways to enhance your workplace safety strategies.

Subscribe now and explore more episodes to stay ahead of dangerous goods safety trends!

Discover the AIDGC: aidgc.org.au

Reach out to RiskCon Engineering: www.riskcon-eng.com

Transcript

Pat: Today Mel and I are in Sydney with Jason Costa. He's a risk engineer with Riskcon Engineering and the president of the Australasian Institute of Dangerous Goods Consultants.  

Mel:  Jason has been kind enough to meet with us ahead of the annual AIDGC conference and workshop here in Sydney, which will have happened once this episode has been released. Jason, can you tell us a little bit about your career and how you ended up in DG consulting and eventually becoming the president of the AIDGC? 

Jason Costa: Yeah, absolutely. And thank you very much for having me. Thank you. So, I'm about six years into my career now, so about six years with Riskcon Engineering. I joined this company straight out of university, and I was lucky enough to get a fantastic role that I've loved ever since. I see probably no reason I'll ever leave. 

I love what I do as a DG consultant, and a risk engineer. The directors of the company at Riskcon were previously involved with the AIDGC quite heavily and encouraged me, as I developed my career, to get as involved. The AIDGC is a fantastic resource for our industry. So, the earlier I could get involved, the better. I think I was 2 or 3 years out of uni when I first joined the AIDGC. 

I’m just trying to work out when I actually did the exam. It was somewhere around that time. Yeah.  

Mel:  So, there's an exam required?  

Jason:  Yeah, yeah. I think after three years of experience. Then to transition from an associate member of the AIDGC, which is for anybody - and I'll touch on that more later - to a full consulting member with qualifications and experience as a consultant, there's an assessment process which is governed by the board of the AIDGC to just ensure that everyone's meeting the requirements to provide appropriate services and consulting knowledge, basically.  

Pat:  And so what was your degree?  

Jason: I studied chemical engineering and project management at university - a double degree at University of Sydney. 

Pat:  Yeah. Cool. What is it that you love about the core of what you're doing as a consultant?  

Jason:  Yeah, I think, I say this all the time: the absolute favourite part of my job is the variability. So, lots of chemical engineers, including myself, going through uni, imagine themselves ending up as a process engineer, like working on a plant. 

The same plant, the same process, day in, day out. Which at the time I thought that was what I was going to end up doing. And like I said, I was lucky enough to land a role in consulting, which I didn't know existed, but found very quickly that it is exactly for me. Being able to go on one site for a short period of time, get involved with a project, see it through to the end, and then transition to a completely new project or completely new process at a different company is fantastic. 

That suits my personality, and it suits what I want to get out of my career.  

Pat:  Can you tell us a bit more about the day-to-day of what a dangerous goods consultant does, and who or what organizations should consider consulting with someone like yourself? 

Jason:  Absolutely. So, dangerous goods, as you guys have explained on the podcast previously, cover most chemicals used in industry. 

So, the clients that we would consult with could be anyone that is storing or handling any form of chemical, essentially. So, covering any class of dangerous goods. The day-to-day would generally be us or one of my team getting a call saying, ‘hey, I've got these chemicals. What do I do with them? How do I store them safely? How do I store them in a compliant manner sufficient to the requirements of local standards and regulations?’  

That's, I guess, the crux of being a DG consultant. And then there's other aspects of risk engineering as well. 

Mel: And what sort of organizations would you support as a consultant?  

Jason:  It can range, like I said, from any industry, but also small or large scale. So, we do work for defence, pharmaceutical, food and beverage industries. Warehousing is up and coming a lot in Sydney these days. Like I said, any sort of scale from, you know, small family-owned businesses up to full blown multi-million [dollar] international companies where they might be doing a project to implement a new process at their plant and bringing in someone like us to consult in that kind of service. 

Pat:  So, what is the AIDGC’s purpose and who does it support and provide service for? 

Jason:  The AIDGC is an independent industry body. 

And the purpose I guess is to provide resources and information to the hazardous chemical industry. And that could be anyone across Australia. The purpose of providing accessibility to consultants is also a key part of the AIDGC. It's not just for consultants themselves, but it's for the clients of those consultants. So, if you're a company that is storing or handling dangerous goods, you can go on the AIDGC website and there's a ‘find a consultant’ feature, which will allow you to locate local consultants in your state or your local area and determine their area of expertise by dangerous goods class. 

Mel: The AIDGC provides a directory and access to more than 60 professionally qualified consultants, can you tell us a bit about this directory? Who are these people and what criteria they must meet to become listed?  

Jason: The directory includes our consulting members as opposed to our associate members. 

Anybody can be an associate member of the AIDGC, whether you just have an interest in hazardous chemical storage at all, whereas the consulting members are assessed and go through a formal process to demonstrate a sufficient level of experience and understanding in the field of DG consulting. And the directory itself specifies by state and by DG class. 

Some of our consultants will specialize in particular classes. For example, your class 3 flammable liquids. We might have a consultant who works solely with underground fuel tanks. So, anyone that's interested or anyone that needs consulting services for something specific like that would be able to identify the consultant that most suits their needs through that directory. 

Pat: As you said before, the criteria they must meet is rigorous.  

Jason: Absolutely. There's a bit of an assessment, like an exam style process, that is governed by the board of the AIDGC, who are all obviously consulting members. We make sure that our consultants that are going through that assessment process have sufficient experience and knowledge, particularly of the relevant Australian standards for each class. 

So, obviously, AS1940 applies to class 3 so, a consultant going through the assessment process for class three competency would be expected to have a very high level of understanding of AS1940 for example. 

Pat: What are some of the topics that are being discussed at the conference this week?  

Jason: This year's conference is a fairly broad one. 

We decided not to go down a specific avenue, given that the most well-received events that the AIDGC has been running over the last year are the ones that cover a wide variety of topics.This week's conference covers things like hydrogen, lithium-ion batteries, general standards and regulatory updates from Safework New South Wales, the regulator in this state, as well as a range of other sort of interesting topics related to the field. 

And we found that, like I said, that is more well received than, specific conference topics that cover only a certain event or a certain niche, I guess. Even though those are extremely valuable, the general audience is more amenable to, you know, as many topics as they possibly can. Yeah, sure.  

Mel: And then they can come to one place and get a vast range of information on the one day, rather than having to come back multiple times.  

Jason: Exactly right and meet a wide range of people that cover such a broad variety of topics as well. 

Mel: Are there networking opportunities?  

Jason: Yeah, definitely. So, throughout the day we'll have networking opportunities between the presentations as well as drinks and a networking event at the end of the conference.  

Pat: who exactly would you recommend this conference for? Who who's it tailored to? 

Jason: Associate members of the AIDGC could be anybody at all. And for that reason, I would encourage anyone that has a vested interest in the storage and handling of hazardous chemicals to get involved with the AIDGC. Come along to our events and you'll meet people. 

The networking opportunities are endless. And the information that we present in the AIDGC conference and other events is extremely valuable. And then obviously consultants themselves, anyone that is a consultant either come along to the events and gain some knowledge or meet other consultants in the fields and consider becoming a consulting member.  

Pat: In terms of those associate members, what sort of variety of job titles might you expect to be in the crowd?  

Jason: We can see anything from, you know, work health and safety officers like your local safety expert or hazardous chemicals officer at a facility that is manufacturing or warehousing, storing hazardous chemicals. Generally, companies like that will have an in-house chemical expert, so they will be the one to go to with all those questions. 

So, for people like that, the AIDGC conference and other events are very, very informative. It allows them to convey information that we present back to their companies.  

Mel: My favourite part of the day is also seeing and hearing about case studies and what's happening out there. Recent incidents. Do any recent incidents spring to mind that we can learn from? 

Jason: There was a recent one in Victoria that I think many of your listeners probably are aware of. The massive warehouse fire down in Derrimut in Melbourne. Yeah, it was awful. And for the particular reason being that that facility had had an incident within the last 12 months already. 

And the previous incident resulted in a fatality. So, that facility should have been, and was subject to, far more scrutiny by regulators and Victorian EPA and the relevant authorities. However, it still ended up having another incident. So, I think that's a key one to learn from. 

Something has gone wrong, and we need to take that on board to make sure it doesn't happen again.  

Pat: The impacts are obvious in both of those incidents. First, the fatality is an obvious impact. But then [in the second incident] the wide-reaching environmental impact was obvious for all the people living in nearby communities. 

Jason: Right. The toxic smoke alone is obviously the key concern when a fire is occurring. But on top of that, Fire and Rescue Victoria applied, I've read somewhere, over eight or nine million litres of water to that fire. That water is being contaminated by chemicals and that water must go somewhere. Yeah. So, it's very likely running off into the local environment and local waterways. The fines and the impact to the environment are going to be very significant.  

Mel: Yeah. And you mentioned emergency service workers. How are they impacted by incidents like this? 

Jason: Yeah, the emergency service workers are obviously as trained as they possibly can be for hazardous chemical related incidents. Particularly, you know, some, fire authorities will have dedicated hazmat teams. 

Okay. Where they are trained specifically to respond to the hazards presented by toxic smoke and potentially contaminated water and things like that. In this case, I think the fire and rescue response was very rapid. Again, I hope that was not due to the virtue that that facility had concerns previously. But in this case, they were able to extinguish the fire as quickly as feasible. 

But in saying that, due to the massive storage of chemicals, it I think it blazed for more than 24 hours. So, still substantial 

Pat: With those first responders, when they're trying to come up with the best practices to respond to incidents involving emerging hazards, emerging risks do they engage with organizations like AIDGC?  

Jason: Absolutely. Yeah. The lithium-ion batteries are a great point. So, that is a very recent topic that's obviously getting more and more traction as we see on the news. More and more, fire scenarios occurring, particularly with e-bikes and e-scooters in apartments, in people's garages at home. The risk there is very substantial and like you said, fire response services or emergency services, including fire response, are the frontline to events such as that. 

So, they need to be aware of the risks associated. An e-scooter is posing very different risks to a regular scooter, obviously. In saying that, we're still struggling to work out the best way to approach lithium-ion battery fires. Applying water through either fire hydrants or, even your domestic hose. You see videos of people just chucking their hose on it... 

It's not found to be very effective at all. That's due to the nature of the chemistry of the batteries. So, we're trying to find other solutions and mitigations to prevent these dramatic fires from occurring so regularly. 

Pat: It's a topic I think we're all still kind of learning a bit about, and often a hot topic at the conference, too. 

Exactly right. Yeah. Which is the reason that this year's AIDGC workshop is focusing solely on lithium-ion batteries, and we did previously as well as it was coming about as, like you said, a hot topic. Two or three years ago maybe is when we started to really focus on the risks associated and we're still talking about it now. 

So, those problems are not fully solved. We need to make sure that they're being responded to by services appropriately, and the design for storage solutions is also appropriate for the risk. 

Mel: Is there anything people should be aware of in terms of changing laws or regulations?  

Jason: The Australian Standards are updated fairly regularly or as required. And local regulations are similarly maintained to keep up with other states, where the regulations can vary. 

The AIDGC is a fantastic resource to keep on top of that. We publish any news related to updated standards or changes to regulation. It's very relevant in the industry because you want to make sure that you're facility’s compliant with the most current regulation, not a superseded one from the past. 

Pat: Is there a particular topic that you're aware of that's being focused on now that you expect to see some changes [to] soon?  

Jason: Definitely. Like we touched on, lithium-ion batteries. I'm hoping that in the very near future, the class nine standards for miscellaneous dangerous goods, including lithium-ion batteries, is reviewed because that one is overdue for a review. 

The technology has developed so much in the last five, ten years, and that standard is over 20 years old. So, it needs to be brought up to date, keeping in mind the risk associated with lithium-ion batteries. 

Mel: And who's involved in that process? Updating standards and regulations.  

Jason: A standard generally has a committee associated with it that's in charge of or works with Standards Australia to update and review and amend standards. The people that are members of that committee will be local experts such as members of the AIDGC. 

Lots of our consulting members are on standards committees for standards on which they have the most expertise and experience. they'll contribute in regular meetings, regular discussions and regular reviews of a certain standards or multiple standards. I personally have been on two different standards committees for standards that we use regularly. And like I said, it's a bit of a process going back and forward with other experts and Standards Australia to make sure that the relevant changes are incorporated.  

Each standard, before it's published, goes for public comment, where anyone can make suggestions, recommend changes or identify ways in which the standard could be improved.  

Pat: Do you think there's a need for, or would you like to see more, people entering the dangerous goods consulting career and if so, what is the pathway to get there? 

Jason: Absolutely. Yeah. I would love to see more and more dangerous goods consultants. In my opinion, the more consultants there are, the less incidents we would have related to DG storage. Ideally, if every single PCBU, so every operator or handler of dangerous goods, engaged a dangerous goods consultant to help them with design or projects, a qualified AIDGC consultant, then we'd be able to minimize the risk and potentially avoid fatalities, injuries or damage to equipment. 

In terms of the way to go about it, most of our consultants have an engineering background but that's not necessary. Depending on your level of experience and involvement in various projects, there is potential for almost anyone to become a consultant, usually under the right guidance. So, myself, for example, I, like I said, was encouraged to join the AIDGC and become a consulting member through the directors of my company who were more senior and more experienced. 

They passed their knowledge on to me and then I used that to become a consulting member. So, under the right guidance, I think anyone could become a consultant.  

Mel: Is there sort of like an internship type program available, or do you partner with someone with more experience on the job? 

Jason: There's not a formal internship process, but the AIDGC does have a student membership option, which I would encourage. It's a very cheap, easy option for uni students, particularly chemical engineers that are interested in the field and want to learn more about local incidents, changes to standards and regulations and how that might impact their future careers as engineers. That would probably be my biggest suggestion to younger engineers looking to get into the field. 

Pat: What other events does the AIDGC have on the calendar?  

Jason: This year, we've obviously got the workshop and the conference coming up. Later in October, we're running a HAZCHEM seminar in conjunction with Workplace Health and Safety Queensland. That’ll be in Brisbane, I think that's in late October. And then we'll have a similar list of events all throughout next year. 

We try and do at least one or two in most major cities.  

Pat: If anyone misses the conference this year, is there a way they can catch up on the content?  

Jason: Absolutely. I'd encourage anyone to reach out to the AIDGC, get in touch, we can always provide the slides. We're looking in the future to enable online or virtual attendance to the conference and events as well, just to sort of facilitate accessibility across the country. 

Pat: We're really looking forward to, attending the workshop and the conference, later this week. Obviously, when this podcast comes out, the events will have just happened, but, hopefully it gives people some inspiration to sign up to the AIDGC and get to some events in the future. 

Mel: Absolutely. Get involved.  

Jason: Thank you both very much for having me.  

Mel: Thank you very much for coming on, Jason.