Waste company facing charges over fire

A waste management company is facing charges over a fire at a chemical processing plant in Adelaide where a worker was injured in 2013.

Federal workplace health and safety regulator Comcare has filed two charges against Transpacific Industries alleging the company failed to ensure the health and safety of workers.

In the blaze at the suburban Wingfield plant, a man was knocked to the ground and suffered burns when a flash fire erupted in a large distillation tank.

The case will come before the Adelaide Magistrates Court on a date to be set with the company facing a maximum fine of $1.5 million on each charge.

Comcare alleges Transpacific workers were conducting the company's first production-scale trial to distil a new industrial solvent from a chemical waste product when the fire erupted.

The force of the blaze knocked a worker to the ground and he was treated in hospital for burns, Comcare said in a statement on Wednesday.