For facilities that ship or receive large shipments of oil or oil products, part of complying with SPCC regulations (40 CFR 112) is the requirement to be prepared for spills during bulk loading and off-loading and to have a Facility Response Plan (FRP).

Drainblocker® Stormwater Drain Covers are a simple tool that can be a form of active containment for Facility Response Plans, and used as an everyday good engineering practice for oil and fuel containment.

Certain facilities with large quantities of oil are required to have a Facility Response Plan as part of their SPCC Plan.    A Facility Response Plan is a document that details how a facility will respond to oil discharges.

If employees are trained to respond to spills as part of this Plan, a Drainblocker® Drain Cover is something that they can used as a fast response tool.   They are a form of active containment can be quickly deployed to cover and seal drains to prevent oil or fuels from entering the drain – which sometimes means the difference between “just a spill” and a reportable spill.

However, let’s step back and remember that SPCC planning is primarily about all of the proactive steps that will be taken to so that you don’t need to put your Facility Response Plan into action.    The EPA calls these steps “good engineering practices.”

Good engineering practices can take many forms.   They can include having spill kits available throughout the facility, teaching employees to keep containers closed when they are not in use, providing fuel containment, requiring oil suppliers to have documented safe transfer procedures… in short, they can be any type of practice, procedure or process that will help prevent oil from leaving the facility.

The EPA leaves it up the facility to determine what good engineering practices make sense for them.  For some people, preparing for spills during transfer might mean portable fuel containment pools.   For others, it might mean opening a valve that will allow a spill to channel to a holding tank.

Many facilities are using Drainblocker® Drain Covers as a good engineering practice, and we think that they are a great choice for a lot of applications – give us a call to see if they’ll be a good tool for your compliance shed.

So the National Pork Board gave up on calling pork the other white meat after only 24 years.

The new slogan, meant to highlight the versatility of pork, is:

I kind of like that, but you watch—in 2035, they’ll just change their minds again.

If there even is pork in 2035. By then, meat will probably be virtual. Some kind of app.

Pigs become obsolete. Herds dwindle and hover near extinction.

Our company’s name, New Pig, comes to refer to a mythical animal.

For that matter, leaks and spills are optional because we all live in the Matrix, where liquid is controlled with a few lines of code.

Rest assured … New Pig will bring you that code.

Today, our innovations are along the lines of the PIG® Absorbent Valve Wrap with Color Flare™ Technology, a breakthrough aid to maintenance that reveals oil leaks by a color change.  Because today we still live in the physical world, where pipes will sometimes fail.

After many tomorrows, when the pipes fail, we’ll be the ones keeping Neo from getting all wet like this:

… because we’ll still be Inventing For You.

My daughter and son-in-law were at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh this weekend and spotted PIG® Absorbent Mat on a window seal and placed below the window to catch condensation. They sent me the picture to share.

Check out this new way to absorb drips and leaks at spots like valves and flanges! This is one case where we’ll gladly point out that there are strings attached, and we’ll even urge you to tie one on!

See full press release below.

New Pig Corporation has recently introduced the PIG® Oil-Only Absorbent Valve Wrap to soak up nuisance drips and leaks in valves, flanges and other oddly shaped pipe components—indoors or out.

Quick and easy to install, the PIG® Oil-Only Valve Wrap features polyethylene drawstrings on each end that hold the Wrap in place. Two sheets of highly absorbent PIG® Mat absorb and retain oils and oil-based liquids while the Wrap’s clear poly backing helps prevent absorbed liquids from leaking through. In addition, the PIG® Oil-Only Valve Wrap is UV-resistant up to one year.

Ideal for avoiding incidental, unscheduled downtime until a leak can be properly fixed, the PIG® Oil-Only Valve Wrap is available in two sizes: 20” x 32” and 8” x 24”. The Wrap’s white color makes absorbed oil easier to see; allowing inspection from a distance.

I just received the picture below from Robin, a member of the New Pig family reporting for jury duty on a rainy morning. She noted that a PIG® Chat Mat® Runner is helping citizens stay safely on their hooves!

I’m glad no one was hurt when part of the ceiling collapsed recently in a seacoast municipal building. Workers knew about leaks and cracks up there, but budget woes had delayed maintenance.

When a tight budget can allow for a PIG® Leak Diverter, that will be a good move in some cases like this. Hanging a Leak Diverter to drain away a leak may buy time and save money in the long run.

Here’s a worthwhile page from OSHA aimed at the cleaning industry, including both front-line workers in cleaning and maintenance and suppliers of cleaning products and services.

It includes links to info on health and safety standards, common hazards and related solutions, implementing a health and safety program and more.

Image © Roman Milert – Fotolia.com

UCLA has a plan for improving lab safety about 7 months after a deadly accident served as a wake-up call and prompted attention including our post.

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SkillTV is offering prizes for the best photos of kids coming in contact with maintenance.

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How toast is manufactured.

Lots of us face temperature issues indoors at work: It’s too hot, it’s too cold …

Here’s how we cope, according to a survey just released by the International Facility Management Association (the link opens a PDF):

Here are categories where we have related products:

Supplemental clothing

Okay, just kidding. But we do sell those.

Block or redirect vents

We have HVAC Diffuser Filters and Deflectors for you.

Tamper with or adjust thermostat

We have ways to constrain who can adjust the thermostat.

Thermostat Protector – 2.5″ W

Thermostat Protector – 5.5″ W

Thermostat Protector – 8.5″ W

Other

Yes, the survey notes that one way that hot office workers cool off is a “small wading pool under the desk to paddle the feet.” It’s hard to imagine a facility where this would be the best solution, but hey, our smallest PIG® Containment Pool would be perfect!

Feet image © VladGavriloff – Fotolia.com

It’s chocolate that melts in your mouth, not in your hand.

But it’s not candy-coated.

And it’s low-calorie!

So we’re promised, anyway. It’ll hit the market in about two years.

This announcement brought to you by an absorbent able to clean up puddled chocolate, PIG® Heavy Fluids Mat.

Image © Sergey Lavrentev – Fotolia.com