Vehicle and machinery hygiene: what an inspection checks

Where soil and seed hide

Most contamination is in places you cannot see from the outside. A good inspection works through each of them on every item.

• Tracks, rollers, idlers and sprockets
• Wheel arches, mud flaps and tyre treads
• Bellypans, chassis rails and the top of the frame
• Radiator cores, grilles and engine bays
• Buckets, blades, rippers and attachments
• Cabs, floor mats, footwells and toolboxes
• Trays, tow hitches and spare wheels

What counts as clean

The usual standard is free of soil, plant material and seed. Dust on paintwork is not the concern. Packed mud, caked soil and trapped plant material are. Where a site, landholder or approval sets its own standard, the inspection follows that one.

What a certificate should record

Each item should have its own record, so you can answer a landholder or auditor quickly.

• The vehicle or plant item, with registration, fleet number or serial number
• Where it came from and where it is going
• The date, time and location of the inspection
• The areas checked and the result, with photos
• Any cleaning carried out and a re-inspection result
• The name of the inspector

Arrival and departure

Inspecting on arrival stops a site being contaminated. Inspecting on departure stops a site spreading what it already has. Projects crossing several properties or catchments often need both, at each boundary. We can inspect at your depot, at a site entry point or at a supervised washdown bay.

Frequently asked questions