Monthly Archives: July 2012

Case Study 1 | Reduced Chemical Exposure Risk

Summary
A water treatment company was responsible for maintaining scale and corrosion inhibitors and biocides on their customers’ boilers and cooling towers as part of their contract with the facility. This meant that the water treatment company’s employees were routinely exposed to corrosives and toxic chemicals. The water treatment company owner was concerned about the long-term exposure to these chemicals as well as an unintended spill, which could have caused an immediate health hazard to anyone exposed to the spill. This could also involve their customer in liability issues, as the incident would have happened on the customer’s premises.

Challenge
How could the water treatment company owner improve safety for his employees and show his customers that his company is responsible and not a major risk to their facilities?

Solution
The water treatment company owner had his maintenance department install the KleenConnect Safety-Feed™ adapters on all of the chemical feed systems they maintained at all of their customers facilities. The water treatment company’s employees are now able to take an empty container off-line and replace it with a new container—without repeated exposure to the dangerous and toxic chemicals as happened in the past. The unexpected added benefit to the water treatment company was that it took their employees much less time to change out the empty containers, which resulted in a substantial time savings. They were also rewarded by their customers for being proactive in their stewardship of responsible chemical handling. The facilities were rewarded by showing their insurance company that the risk at their facility had been greatly reduced with this new procedure.

Results: Reduced risk of worker exposure to chemicals; time savings due to faster changing out of empty drums and containers; cost savings on insurance due to reduced risk.


Case Study 2 | Safer, Faster Drum Replacement

Summary
A food processing company routinely used sanitation chemicals to clean their facility and maintain food safety. This required workers to use chemicals that are considered hazardous to workers in concentrated form: workers connected chemical feed systems to their 55-gallon drums of sanitation chemicals by removing the bungs from the drums and replacing them with bungs that had holes drilled into their centers into which they installed chemical pick up hoses. This method was messy and dangerous because it exposed the workers to the hazardous chemicals every single time they had to replace an empty 55-gallon drum with a full one.

Challenge
Find a way to make it safer and quicker for workers to change out drums and IBCs.

Solution
The customer added our KleenConnect Safety-Feed™ adapters to its chemical feed systems. This enabled workers to change out empty containers without removing the bung from the drum—meaning there would be no worker contact with the hazardous material and the task would be quick and easy to perform.

NOTE: The safety officer at this company will no longer accept any chemical containers coming into the facility without the KleenConnect Safety-Feed™ installed in the drum or IBC.

Results: Reduced risk of worker exposure to chemicals; time savings due to faster changing out of empty drums and containers.