Fleet Maintenance - 38

Products available
for mitigating
and managing
shop spills
Different devices available
for spill prevention and spill
containment or cleanup.
The products used
when handling a spill
can be broken down
into two categories:
prevention and containment/cleanup.
The materials used
for preventing spills
are referred to as secondary containment.

"Secondary containment is a heightened
level of protection for
drums, totes, tanks,
and other primary
containers. If any primary container holds a
hazardous substance,
the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency
(EPA) requires them

»»The AirVAC is an
air-operated, handheld
wet vacuum designed
to pick up a variety
of shop substances,
from heavyweight
gear oil to antifreeze.
Photo courtesy of Flo-Dynamics

to have secondary
containment," explains
Robin Thornett, marketing manager of
SpillTech, a manufacturer of high-performance polypropylene
sorbent products for
industrial maintenance
and spill cleanup.
This secondary containment device is a

fail-safe for the drums,
totes, and other containers. If one of those
containers fails, fleets
won't have to worry
about a potentially
hazardous spill; the
secondary containment device will confine the liquid. This not
only keeps the workplace safer and the
environment free from

contaminants, but also
makes cleanup much
faster and recycling
of the spilled substance much easier.
Products used for
this sort of containment traditionally
include pallets, decks,
berms, dikes, and
concrete walls, but a
sloped room where
the liquid is able to
accumulate at one
end until the spilled
substance is cleaned
can also be utilized,
Thornett notes.
As for the second
category of products - containment/
cleanup - these tools
have changed greatly
over the years.
"In the past, shop
workers would likely
reach for a bag of
kitty litter or other
clay-based loose
absorbents," Thornett
says. "But, those
types of products
tend to create even
more mess; take
time and energy
from workers who
should be doing
something else; are
dusty and therefore
hazardous to health;
[and are] heavy and
hard to dispose of."
Needless to say, those
methods of cleanup
are rarely used today.
When containing a
spill, absorbent socks,
booms, non-absorbent dikes, and flexible barriers are used
to stop the spill from
spreading. Thornett
notes this is arguably
the most important
step in cleaning a spill
because the faster
the spill is contained

VehicleServicePros.com/10123007

38 Fleet Maintenance | December 2019

»»Polypropylene
absorbents are
designed to be singleuse and disposable.
Some technicians
have been able to
wring pads and rolls
to recover liquids, but
the pads and rolls are
not suitable for reuse.
Photo courtesy of SpillTech

the smaller the area
affected, meaning a
quicker cleanup time.
Once the spill has
been contained, fleets
should use polypropylene pads, socks, and
pillows to soak up the
liquid. In some cases,
a wet vacuum can be
used to clean spills,
but it is not advised
to use a vacuum on
flammable liquids
such as gasoline. For
high-volume spills,
pillows should be used
to clean the majority
of the mess, followed
by pads to clean what
remains of the spill.
If the spill is small to
start with, skip the pillow and just use a pad.
Fleets should create a
spill plan outlining the
processes, containers,
tanks, and equipment
that could leak or spill,
and the plans and
procedures in place
to prevent spills and
respond to them in
order to figure out
what products will
best suit their needs
for handling spills.
http://WWW.MDLTD.CA http://www.VehicleServicePros.com/10123007
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