Here’s the official announcement about New Pig’s second Catalog of the Year award, as mentioned in an earlier post.

We’re humbled and grateful and will just keep on working hard!

Attention Truckies!* Here’s galactic storage and handling news!

*fans of lift trucks

Don’t miss the Airtrax Lift Truck in the new Star Trek movie! It’s right there in the Enterpise loading bay! The vehicle with the futuristic omni-directional roller wheels. The clip below is not from the movie but does show the Lift Truck.

You may, er, fail to notice any of the following equally-nifty solutions for storage and handling and spill containment in lift bays. I’m sure they’re in use, just out of view during the action.

Poly Containment Pallets

Poly Containment Decks

Poly Roll Top Pallets & Storage Lockers

Pop-up Pools

SPILLBLOCKER® Dikes

Safety Cabinets and Accessories

Poly Funnels and Accessories

Click here for an Mike Rowe’s advice on how to simulate handling a pig. It involves a garbage bag, large quantities of jello, yogurt, marbles, petroleum jelly and dog poo, plus squealing and kicking.

Well, what did you think we were made of? Sugar, spice, snips, snails and puppy dog tails??

Seriously, we all know how things can be staged for “reality” shows. We’re not THAT bad. Well, not all the time. See below for a different image.  That’s my cousin Judson with a friend heading into a jazz concert.

Check out this story about a forgotten refrigerator and the mayhem it creates.

Twenty-eight people were sickened and seven taken to the hospital! People are vomiting all over the place, 325 people evacuated from the building and the hazmat team is called in!

The story is ridiculous, right? But at the same time, the ridiculous can prompt an OSHA inspection. OSHA 1904.39 states “Within eight (8) hours after the death of any employee from a work-related incident or the in-patient hospitalization of three or more employees as a result of a work-related incident, you must orally report the fatality/multiple hospitalization by telephone or in person to… OSHA”

I don’t know if these employees were hospitalized, but they may have been. If so, you can be almost certain that an OSHA inspector will be knocking on the door.

Don’t let a cleaning situation turn into an inspection with potential fines. Keep your employees safe. Know your facility and know the chemicals you have on hand. This will save everybody a lot of trouble … as well as from losing their lunch.

Image © Chastity – Fotolia.com

I recommend this to all project management newbies: The Online Glossary of Project Management Terms (free but registration required). Search 3,400 terms, phrases and acronyms that WILL come up in meetings. This could save you from getting lost in the SMOKE AND MIRRORS (see the Glossary for the definition).

I have a new appreciation for just how weird and wild work talk can be … and how easily someone could get lost in it.

Here’s an alphabet of acronyms from the Glossary: AQL, B2b, CAD, DSO, EA, FAC, GERT, HCA, ICE, JA, KPP, LCM, MDA, NIH, OE, P2M, QC, RDU, SA, TD, UCC, VAR, WBS, XP, YTD, ZD.

And an alphabet of favorites:

ACT OF GOD

BEHIND THE EIGHT BALL

COCK-AND-BULL STORY

DOG AND PONY SHOW

ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

FISH OR CUT BAIT

GARBAGE IN/GARBAGE OUT

HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM

IN THE BAG

JUST IN TIME

KNOW WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS

LOCK, STOCK AND BARREL

MURPHY’S LAW

NO-BRAINER

ONE-OFF

POUND OF FLESH

QUID PRO QUO

RED HERRING

SACRED COW

TRUE-UP

UNKNOWN UNKNOWNS (Or “unk-unks,” says the Glossary)

VIRTUAL TEAM

WHOLE NINE YARDS

XP

YAGNI

ZERO-SUM

My post on compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) drew a  comment from Walt McGinnis, a licensed electrician and radiation tester who’s also blogged about this topic. His post is definitely worth reading and mentions several more considerations related to CFLs, including:

• Possible dangers from ultraviolet, radio frequency and electromagnetic radiation
• Energy consumed during manufacturing, packaging, shipping, selling and disposal, as well as during related mercury reclamation
• Energy losses during operation
• Product life and efficiency improvements in incandescent bulbs
• Potentially much greater gains to be made in water heating energy use

One of the Walt’s most interesting points concerns the cooler operating temperature of CFL’s: While this may reduce air conditioning use in summer, it may also increase heating use in winter, peak season for both lighting and heating. Great perspective!

Walt, thanks very much for reading The Pig Blog and for your comments.

Image © Roger Asbury – Fotolia.com

On Wednesday, May 6, the “Academy Awards” of the catalog industry were announced at the Annual Conference for Catalog and Multichannel Merchants in New Orleans. Once again, New Pig brought home the bacon!

The Big Pigalog® 2009 Buying Guide US Edition won Gold in the Industrial Supplies category. That makes 8 consecutive years that our Big Pigalog® catalog has won gold—quite a feat!

Click here to page through the entire Big Pigalog® 2009 online

But don’t put your hooves together yet, there’s more good news. The 2009 Big Pigalog® 2009 Buying Guide UK Edition not only won its 5th consecutive Gold in the International division, it also won Catalog of the Year honors! Bloody good, one might say!

By the way, our Big Pigalog® Buying Guide US Edition was also named Catalog of the Year in 2006.

Winning top honors over tough competition year after year is a tribute to our Creative & Marketing team for its commitment to copy, design, and production excellence. More than just creative awards, however, these honors reflect what the rest of our company is doing worldwide—product quality, manufacturing excellence, brand energy, customer service beyond belief, merchandising expertise, marketing prowess and systems strength. This award honors all Piggers in our quest to be a world-class organization.

A compact fluorescent lamp (CFL), that leading symbol of environmental awareness, has environmental and health issues of its own that may surprise you. Balanced against the potential energy and cost savings are potential dangers to people, animals and plants during the manufacturing, use and disposal of CFLs. You can make up your own mind about using them at home or at work; it’s just good to have the information you need to make an informed decision.

Image  © Petr Kratochvil – Fotolia.com

A closer look at energy and cost savings
CFLs are often known as energy saving lights because a CFL generally uses less power and has a longer rated life than incandescent lamps. Typically, the packaging for a CFL will say that the lamp can save over US $30 in electricity costs over its lifetime compared to the lifetime of an incandescent bulb.

However, a CFL may last no longer than an incandescent bulb if it’s used for only a few minutes at a time. The US Energy Star program advises leaving a CFL on for at least 15 minutes at a time. In that context, your higher-priced CFL may save you nothing when used for a trip to the kitchen for a midnight snack or to the bathroom or in many other on-and-off situations.

A closer look at environmental benefits
Not only are CFLs engineered to use less power than incandescent lamps, but because they also run cooler, they may also cut air conditioning power use. Assuming that it draws electricity derived from burning fossil fuels, a CFL used to its maximum life may save 2,000 times its own weight in greenhouse gases.

In areas powered by coal, CFLs may also reduce some mercury emissions (because coal emissions include mercury). However, mercury is at the core of environmental and health damage that CFLs may cause …

A closer look at mercury factors
Like all fluorescent lamps, CFLs contain mercury vapor that glows when electrified. Mercury is highly toxic. An accumulation in the body can cause nerve, lung and kidney damage and especially threatens unborn babies and young children.  And unfortunately, you can’t see, smell or taste mercury vapors—so it’s hard to know whether you’ve been exposed.

Some quick history: Ancient Roman and Greek cultures knew about the dangers of mercury. Prisoners were often made to work in mercury mines to spare the health of the general population. This was actually a death sentence worse than beheading or stoning because it was slower and more painful. And remember the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland? Well, he was “mad” because hatters commonly used mercury to shape the felt in felt hats. The overexposure to mercury vapors caused madness.

Having that information helps underline tragic news reported this week in the London Times that the manufacturing of CFLs has led to hundreds of citizens of China being poisoned by mercury. The article says that inadequate safety and environmental controls in some mines and factories not only sicken people and animals, but also stunt crops.

Mercury vapor is released any time a CFL or any fluorescent light is broken. You’ll find cleanup advice at this EPA page, starting with the instruction to open a window and leave the room for 15 minutes. The EPA page also has information for what to do in case liquid mercury spills. Keep our Mercury Spill Control Kits in mind. The MerconKit™ product below features excellent vapor control as well.

Frankly, the EPA is vague about CFL disposal. The advice is to look for options locally, but there are sometimes none to be found. I know this firsthand: I’ve got a half a dozen CFLs in a box in my garage waiting for a good disposal option. This drives me nuts, especially because some countries are going to make CFLs mandatory as soon as next year, so a lot more people will run into the same situation OR, not knowing any better or not caring, will just toss spent or broken CFLs into the regular trash. Not only does this increase their risk of exposure to mercury vapor, it also sets up a prime scenario for water and other resources to be contaminated!

The closest “safe and responsible” disposal option I’ve found (starting here) is the Home Depot or IKEA in Pittsburgh—about a two-hour drive from my hometown.  So I’ve spent twice the money to buy this bulb, and will have to drive 120 miles to get rid of it?  Now I’m creating excess air emissions and wasting fossil fuels. Have legislators really thought this through?

Thankfully, it’s often easier for companies who use recycling services. New Pig is diligent about recycling CFLs, fluorescent tube lamps, HID bulbs and as many other materials as we can.  We can only hope that more convenient options will become available for the general public as well.

Hope you found all of this this en-light-ening …

Think you know all the facts about SPCC compliance? Take our 6-question quiz to find out for sure!

If you’re not satisfied with your score or just want to know more,  click here for more information about the EPA’s SPCC requirements and some helpful hints for keeping your facility compliant and our water resources safe!