Winning raft

A raft designed to float on
raw sewage was one of the
winning entries at the UK
water sector’s first-ever
health and safety awards,
staged by Thames Water.

ERIKS Industrial Services
made the floating work
platform to improve safety
for engineers cleaning out
sewage settlement tanks at
sewage works.

Until now they have had
to drain down the tanks and
set up scaffolds to carry out
routine cleaning and
maintenance. The new
floating platforms bring two
benefits: Firstly, workers no
longer have to run the risk of
working at height in a
drained-down tank.

Secondly, the tanks no longer
have to be fully emptied
while being cleaned, which
means less disruption to the
sewage works’ operation.