If you are responsible for the spill, you need to deal with it immediately. If you don’t, you could cause a serious pollution incident and may have enforcement action taken against you.
If it is safe to do so, stop the flow of oil.
Use the contents of a spill kit (old rags and towels will help too) or sandbags to soak up the oil if it’s on a hard surface and stop it entering a river, stream, watercourse, and drains or soaking into the ground.
Never wash any spilt oil away into drains, a gully or into the ground. Most drains connect to the nearest watercourse and oil can cause serious pollution of rivers, streams and groundwater.
Never use detergents to clean up spilt oil; you could cause a worse pollution incident. The detergent itself is a pollutant and mixes oil into the water.
You may be in an environmentally sensitive location which needs a very quick response to prevent serious pollution of the local environment and nearby groundwater drinking water supplies.
Contact your insurance company and tell them that there’s been a leak or spill from your tank or pipework, that a clean up operation using a professional company may be needed and to claim the cost of your lost oil.
Don’t put yourself at risk to clean-up an oil spill. In all cases, call the free 24 hour Environment Agency Incident Hotline on 0800 807060 to report the spill and seek advice for further action.
