In the United States, the handling of hazardous materials is governed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s guidelines. OSHA require that proper labeling of containers, employee training, and accurate record keeping be practiced by any organization which handles such materials, either on a regular or an ad hoc basis.
In addition to this, organizations must take the necessary steps to ensure the safe handling, processing, storage, usage and transportation of these materials. This involves incorporating some of the following solutions into your business practice.
Comprehensive Testing and Analysis Equipment
An organization needs to stay on top of the materials it is handling and have the necessary measures in place to assess and monitor the safety of its processes. Water test kits help businesses to categorize the risk level of the materials they are handling. This produces data feedback, which assessment teams can use for proper labeling and record keeping.
It is also important to deploy gas leak detectors alongside these safety measures, ensuring that the health of employees and other individuals is never put at risk.
Additional Levels of Containment
Maintaining multiple levels of protection and containment, having emergency kits at hand, and taking simple measures to prevent hazardous spills, are essential in countering dangerous leaks and other mishaps. While such occurrences can never be ruled out 100%, secondary containment solutions help to minimize the risk as much as possible and can downgrade a potentially catastrophic accident into a minor and easily manageable incident.
Robust and Reliable Packaging
Using metal, cardboard or wooden containers may not provide the necessary level of protection. Instead, businesses should store and transport hazardous materials using only industry-approved high-density polyethylene – or HDPE – packaging. This type of packaging is robust enough to stand up to most incidences of impact which might occur during transportation. It is also highly resistant to corrosion.
Spill Containment
In the event that a toxic, corrosive or otherwise hazardous spill does occur, having the necessary containment equipment on hand is vital. This enables teams to quickly contain and eliminate the spread of a spillage on the scene, hugely reducing the potential damage to property and to employee and public health.
Large scale, heavy duty spill berms and containment platforms can be used to contain spillages from vehicles or tanks, providing yet another level of protection. Again, the idea is to minimize the risk to the best of the team’s ability by adding as many phases of containment as feasibly possible.
Waste Treatment
Contaminants may leak into waste water, which then leaves the site. Not only is this dangerous but it is also illegal under United States law. All organizations are duty bound to ensure that waste water is correctly treated. This is of particular concern of companies who handle hazardous materials as part of their regular duties.
Chemtech International provides the above solutions to American businesses, ensuring safe and legally-compliant practices, no matter what sort of hazardous materials are being handled. Get in touch with the team today to learn more about the advantages, and peace of mind, that we can provide.