2021/0888/NL
EC/EFTA
NL Netherlands
  • B00 - CONSTRUCTION
2022-03-23
2022-01-13

Hydraulically bound grout products

Swelling clay products

Order of the State Secretary for Infrastructure and Water Management of........,

No IENW/BSK-2021/304111, amending the Soil Quality Regulation to split the standard document for grout into a standard document for grout and a standard document for swelling clay

The Soil Quality Order [Regeling bodemkwaliteit] implements the Soil Quality Decree [Besluit bodemkwaliteit], the Water Act [Waterwet], the Soil Protection Act [Wet bodembescherming] and the Environmental Management Act [Wet milieubeheer]. The Order governs, inter alia, the quality of the construction materials, soil and dredging spoils to be used and how this quality will be tested against the applicable standards. The Order refers to normative documents which are applied when granting licences and approvals that companies and people must have in order to be allowed to carry out certain activities. The normative documents also state how the companies must carry out these activities. The normative documents are commonly developed together by industry and government. The standards documents are dynamic. Innovations and changing insights may lead to amendments of normative documents. The industry expressly wishes the Soil Quality Order to be be in line

with the above-mentioned documents, so that, in practice, work can be done according to the newest insights and techniques. For this reason, the references to the normative documents are updated periodically. The draft amendment order includes such an update. There have already been similar amendments to the Soil Quality Regulation which were also notified to the European Commission pursuant to Directive 98/34/EEC at the time.
All standard documents referred to have been checked for possible incompatibility with the Regulation on construction products (Regulation (EU) No 305/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 March 2011 laying down harmonised conditions for the marketing of construction products and repealing Council Directive 89/106/EEC). As a consequence of the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union of 6
October 2014 in case C-100/13. This has led to the adaptation of a number of standard documents, which prescribe labels or inspections for construction products, while the Regulation already states the obligation to affix a CE marking and regulates the inspection. Now, it refers to the updated version of the normative documents. An overview of this is provided in the explanatory memorandum to the order.
The current update concerns the two standard documents BRL 5078 and BRL 5079. The old BRL 5078 shall expire and is replaced by these two new BRLs. The (New) BRL 5078 concerns hydraulically bonded grout products for use as sealing material in the soil. BRL 5079 concerns swelling clay products for application as sealing material in the soil. These BRLs may contain technical requirements. The BRLs set requirements for the emission, composition and stability of the product in paragraph 4. In addition, the document sets out the
methods for determining compliance with the requirements. The document also imposes requirements on the product packaging.