See what happens when oil and water mix, and how PIG® Oil Absorbent Mats come the rescue in our latest video

It’s true that the more often a piece of information is repeated, the more likely a person is to remember it. Take the number 3349.

3349 does not seem significant. In fact, it is hard to connect 3349 to anything. A person would be hard-pressed to even come up with a correlation to 3349.

But 3349 is important. Why is 3349 so important? Because 3349 is the booth number for New Pig at the National Safety Council’s 2011 Congress and Expo in Philadelphia, PA from October 31 to Nov. 2.

So stop by booth 3349 to meet the New Pig team who will be sharing great innovative solutions to keep your workplace safe, clean and productive.

You can even get your first look at PIG® Grippy® Mat– the revolutionary absorbent mat that stays put no matter what™.

Hope to see you there (at booth #3349, of course)

My 10 year old son, Nolan, asked if I would share with my co-workers his LEGO creation of PIG® Mat in action. Even mad scientists need to clean up with the best mat around, right?

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.

I have to share this article titled “Innovative Leak Controls Minimize Downtime.” The innovative leak controls came from New Piggers collaborating with customers.

The article describes use of our PIG® Oil-Only Absorbent Valve Wraps at utility substations, where oily leaks and drips from transformers are common. The Valve Wraps capture liquids right at the leak point, which helps make maintenance much more efficient.

You’ll read how user suggestions helped lead to valuable features such as the drawstrings on this model of the PIG® Oil-Only Absorbent Valve Wrap.

And the author says this about another product tested in the field, our PIG® Drive-Over LEAKBLOCKER™ Dike: so easy to use, [we] didn’t need to offer any formal training on the use of the products and their applications.

Now THAT is what we mean when we say New Pig is Inventing For You.

P.S. Here’s the post where we first announced the PIG® Oil-Only Absorbent Valve Wraps.

Ford pulled a pretty cool stunt to address those V6-in-a-full-size-truck naysayers. Basically, they tortured the heck out of a randomly selected engine for months and tore it down live in front of the crowds at the Detroit Auto Show on Sunday.

If you look closely at their teardown area, there are copious amounts of PIG® Absorbent Mat lining the benches under all of those parts…

Looks like Ford not only knows how to build a great truck engine, but they also how to tear it down the RIGHT way!

New Pig has a small part in some creative recycling by General Motors .

GM has found a way to convert 100 miles of oil-soaked boom used in the Gulf Spill response—including PIG® Oil-Only Absorbent Booms. This will yield enough plastic for particular under-hood parts to supply the first year production of the Chevrolet Volt. It means 100,000 pounds that won’t be incinerated or landfilled.

You go, GM. Below is a good quick video overview:

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!

If your facility is required to have a Facility Response Plan under SPCC regulations (40 CFR 112,) you’re probably familiar with the term “worst case scenario discharge.”

Chances are, you’ve already done a hazard evaluation and created lots of discharge scenarios, lists, and training modules   (if not – better get moving: the deadline is November 10^th… I’m sorry, but you aren’t eligible for the one-year extension.)

Because the main focus of Facility Response Plans is on “worst case” discharges, a topic that can sometimes get overlooked is the requirement to also plan for small to medium sized discharges.

According to the National Response Center, most discharges are less than 100 gallons, which makes preparing for small spills just as important as planning for “the big one.”

We’ve talked to a lot of customers who are creating, reviewing or modifying their response plans, and a common question is “how big of a spill kit do I need?”  We even recently had a call from a customer who had just gotten off the phone with EPA and was really frustrated because they wouldn’t tell her how many spill kits she needed or what products should be in them.

Could that be right?   Why couldn’t EPA tell her how many spill kits she needs?  After all, she did know her worst case scenario discharge.

Just like other portions of the SPCC rule, the EPA specifically created flexibility in this area to allow facilities to determine what will best meet their particular needs.  That’s why there was no hard, fast number of absorbent booms, bales of mat or any other “list” that the EPA could reference to answer this question.

Spill kits are just one of many tools that can be used to comply with the requirement to have “emergency response equipment” as part of your Facility Response Plan.

So, how many spill kits do you need, and where should you put them?

The first question we usually ask customers is how big of spill they can have at their facility (or in EPA terms, what is the “worst case scenario.”)  But, that doesn’t tell the whole story.

Barring natural and man-made disasters, discharges most commonly happen when oil is being transferred, and spills are usually less than “worst case” levels.   Data from the National Response Center helps to confirm this: most spills are less than 100 gallons.

Knowing this, it makes sense to put spill kits in areas where oil is transferred, and in areas where spills are likely to happen.  Receiving docks, waste collection areas, processing areas, areas where oil is pumped from drums or totes, outdoor storage areas, and fleet maintenance areas are all good areas to consider for spill kits.

Next, consider the size needed in each area.   Instead of looking at the overall “worst case” scenario, consider what is likely to happen in a given area.   For example, if you’re pumping oil from a 55-gallon drum that is stored on a containment pallet into a five gallon bucket, you could create a “worst case” scenario for that area that would involve a full-drum failure that somehow missed the containment pallet.

However, it is far more likely that a spill in this area would involve someone tipping the five gallon bucket – so a spill kit that absorbs five gallons may be an appropriate choice for that particular area (especially if other kits can be accessed and brought to the area quickly to address “worst case” issues.)

For loading docks, consider the types of containers that commonly arrive: are they five gallon pails? Drums? Totes? If the biggest container is a 55-gallon drum, it’s reasonable to plan for a 55-gallon spill on the dock.  You can follow this logic throughout a facility to address “small” spill needs.

So, back to “the big one.” If you have a 10,000 gallon, outdoor, above-ground storage tank – which spill kit should you choose?

We’ve found our large and extra large response carts to be a good fit for these scenarios, when they are coupled with other response equipment like our Drainblocker® Drain Covers, absorbent booms, vacuum trucks and other recovery equipment.    They help get the spill under control while other equipment is being readied.

Still not sure?  Give us a call.  We’d be glad to walk you through possible solutions.

Even if your facility already has an SPCC plan in place, it doesn’t hurt to take it of the shelf and sneak a peek at it a little more often than the required 5-year interval spelled out in 40 CFR 112 to see if those good engineering practices that were listed so long ago are still relevant and viable.

When you think about all of the different technologies that have been developed over the past five or six years, it makes sense that EPA requires periodic plan reviews. It is very likely that there’s a new tool, form of spill containment, new types of spill berms, or some other gadget that wasn’t available ten years ago, and that might end up being a really good fit in your facility response plans.

What’s new in Countermeasures?

Let’s reflect for a moment on the last “C” in SPCC. It stands for “Countermeasures.” The elements in facility response plans document those countermeasures, listing what workers at the facility will use to contain, clean up and mitigate any oil spill that actually does reach navigable waters. Even if your facility doesn’t meet the criteria to be required to have a facility response plan, there still are some other spill containment and planning elements that need to be considered and documented with your SPCC plan.

Being able to provide spill containment is an essential plan element, and it goes a long way toward minimizing the effects of a discharge.  Even if some oil does reach a drain and enter navigable waters, having portable spill berms, dikes or other devices to minimize the overall volume entering the water is still going to be a benefit to the overall clean-up effort.

In a guidance document on 40 CFR 112 issued to EPA Regional Inspectors, one of the elements that an inspector is tasked with looking for in a facility’s plan is whether or not they feel that the planning elements and control devices are adequate to control or mitigate an oil discharge.

Specifically, what’s new in Spill Berms?

Spill berms are a control device that gives facilities a lot of liberty for containment and diverting liquids. Years ago, spill berms were most often highly engineered products—most often made of concrete—that required several months and hundreds of drawings before installation. Now, there are other options—both active and passive—that can alleviate a lot of the headaches associated with stopping spills, without being an obstacle.

One example is our PIG® Build-A-Berm® Barrier. It comes in two, four and six-inch heights and is simple to install indoors or outdoors to provide active secondary spill containment around tanks, processing areas, storage bays or anything else that could leak.  I actually had a call from a customer last week who has had one in place in a tank farm in Texas since 2004—and it’s still going strong; he just needed some new sealant because it was starting to crack in a few places and he wanted to renew the seal.

One of the neatest features of this product is that unlike hard, concrete berms, the foam core allows the product to be walked on or driven over, so you never lose or limit access to the area being contained.

If low-clearance vehicles are in use—here’s what else is new!

If traditional spill berms just won’t work—which is sometimes the case if tow motors or other vehicles with low clearance are common at your facility, our PIG® SPILLBLOCKER® Dikes are a great form of passive spill containment.  The flexible polyurethane hugs flat surfaces, creating a seal that keeps liquids in check and out of sensitive areas.  Like the PIG® Build-A-Berm® Barrier, it is also available in multiple heights to meet a variety of containment needs.  It can be deployed proactively prior to fluid transfers, or reactively in response to a release that has just happened, making a versatile spill response tool.

Depending on the type of secondary containment needed, 40 CFR 112 does offer a lot of flexibility when choosing products or designs to fit your facility’s needs.  With innovative products, you may no longer have to settle for concrete moats that don’t allow access.  If you facility is expanding or changing processes, it might be time to consider new ways of containing them, too.