The National Truck Driving Championships will happen in Pittsburgh August 18-22. They bring together winners of state and regional competitions to demonstrate their professionalism in driving, inspection and knowledge.

This video featuring UPS drivers at the 2008 National Championships (Episode 1 of 6) caught my eye because UPS is one of our main carriers. I feel like a better person for having watched it. The drivers and their families personify salt of the earth. Look at the truckers’ pride in excelling at their jobs, and their families’ pride in them. Great stuff.

That gives me extra pride that trucks steadily stream in and out of New Pig. Not only that, but there are trucks all across the country equipped with a variety of PIG® products for responding to on-the-road leaks and spills (see below). Safe travels, drivers.

Image © Elenathewise – Fotolia.com

PIG® products for trucks:

PIG® Pop-Up Containment Pools

PIG® Repair Putties

PIG® Universal Spill Kits in Bags

PIG® Oil-Only Spill Kits in Bags

PIG® Hazardous Materials Spill Kits in Bags

Related posts:

New in loading dock safety: “Trailer occupied” lights

Map-A-Spill special edition: Burger and beer spills spawn best news lead ever

Last-minute Friday-the-13th story of quick spill response

Mud flaps that increase safety and cut fuel use up to 3.5%

What’s a Health & Safety Management System?

This article offers an illustration: It’s a way to help ensure that bonding/grounding wires are in place where needed. It provides answers to such questions as:

• Who tells employees about the relevant OSHA regulation?
• Who inspects wires?
• How often are wires inspected?
• Who reports broken wires?
• Who gets new wires?
• Who installs wires?
• Who okays the installation?
• How soon must a faulty wire be replaced?
• Does work stop when there’s no wire in place?

If your site uses bonding/grounding wires, and you don’t have ready answers to those questions—maybe you’re not ensuring your employees’ health and safety, and maybe you need a Health and Safety Management System.

This study says that hands-free phones are no safer than hand-held phones. The distraction factor is why the National Safety Council urges banning all mobile phone use during driving.

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TreeHugger.com (unfairly?) slams energy-generating speed bumps, particularly those installed at a Burger King drive-through.

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Advice on how to reengineer your maintenance stockroom to save time.

We at New Pig will gladly help you deal with any leak or spill on the job.

UNLESS you don’t survive a leak or spill during your commute.

Insurance.com points out that distraction causes 80% of vehicle crashes and 65% of near-crashes, then explains why the following treats are the most likely to distract a driver:

1. Coffee – Even in cups with travel lids, somehow the liquid finds its way out of the opening each time you hit a bump.
2. Hot soup – Many people drink it like coffee and run the same risks.
3. Tacos – Any food that can disassemble itself will leave your car looking like a salad bar.
4. Chili – The potential for drips and slops down the front of clothing is significant.
5. Hamburgers – From the grease of the burger to ketchup and mustard, it could all end up on your hands, your clothes, and the steering wheel.
6. Barbecued food – Ditto. The sauce may be great, but if you have to lick your fingers, the sauce will end up on whatever you touch – and that wheel will be tough to grip.
7. Fried chicken – Another food that leaves you with greasy hands, which means constantly wiping them on something, even if it’s your shirt.
8. Jelly or cream-filled donuts – Have you eaten a jelly donut without some of the center oozing out? It’s simply not possible.
9. Soft drinks – Not only are they subject to spills, but also the carbonated kind can fizz as you’re drinking if you make sudden movements, and most of us remember cola fizz in the nose from childhood. It isn’t any more pleasant now.
10. Chocolate – Like greasy foods, chocolate coats the fingers as it melts, leaving its mark anywhere you touch. As you try to clean it off the steering wheel you’re likely to end up swerving.

Safe travels, everyone!

This makes me wonder if there have been any incidents involving the one New Pig product that features a cup holder …

Image © flashgun – Fotolia.com

The following is adapted from an article I wrote for the latest edition of OHS magazine. Used with permission.

OSHA’s Hazard Communication Standard is among the most common safety citations in general industry, with over 4,000 violations annually. Hopefully, the following information will help you comply and have a safer workplace.

The HazCom Standard requires a written outline for a hazard communication program, proper employee training on workplace hazards, and documentation that each employee who could be exposed a hazard understands how to protect himself. This includes a process for proper container labeling—curled masking tape with smudged ink won’t satisfy a compliance officer.

Chemical manufacturer responsibilities

The manufacturer or importer of a chemical must determine its hazards [29 CFR 1910.1200(d)(1)]. OSHA lets employers treat this information as accurate.

A container of hazardous chemicals must have a Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) listing hazardous components and describing health hazards, proper use, and emergency procedures. OSHA also requires thefollowing information on the container, label or tag [29 CFR 1910.1200(f)(1)]:

• Identity of the chemical
• Appropriate hazard warnings
• Name and address of the manufacturer, importer, or other responsible party

If a chemical manufacturer or importer learns of a new hazard, labels and information must be revised within three months. Hazardous materials in transit must meet not only OSHA requirements but also those of the Department of Transportation (DOT).

Employer responsibilities

Creating an employer’s hazard communication plan will include the following steps:

• Create an inventory of hazardous chemicals on site
• Gather an MSDS for each
• Develop a program describing how a container will be marked so workers can easily identify the chemical and its hazards. [29 CFR 1910.1200(f)(5)]. OSHA requires that markings be legible, in English, and prominently displayed. The chemical’s identity may be a common or trade name or the actual chemical name. Hazard warnings may be words, pictures, symbols, numeric representations, or a combination.
• Document training plans, including schedules for refresher sessions.

Labeling requirements apply when a hazardous chemical is transferred to a smaller portable container unless the dispensing person immediately uses the chemical. [29 CFR 1910.1200(f) (5), 29 CFR 1910.1200(f) (7)]. Employees who do such dispensing must understand the requirements and know how to mark a portable container when needed, or how to get this done.

Facilities often use the labeling standards of the NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) or HMIS (Hazardous Materials Information System). Both systems indicate hazard levels with a numeric scale. Using established systems like these aids labeling, training and compliance, as an MSDS will often include the NFPA and HMIS numeric values.

An employer should designate someone to ensure that container markings follow the established format and always have proper and current information. This includes documenting these duties and the review and updating process.

Training

OSHA requires that each employee receives information about:

• Any hazardous chemical exposure possible in his workplace
• How to protect against such exposure
• How to read container markings and MSDS
• Where MSDS are stored and how to get more information

Some employers give all workers the same HazCom training. Others tailor training to hazards in an employee’s main work area so training is more realistic. Proper signs help remind employees of hazards in areas they rarely visit.

Receiving crews should be trained to accept only properly labeled chemicals, perhaps only those on a specified inventory. Some facilities establish protocols for MSDS; for instance, requiring chemical suppliers to send them in advance and/or only to a safety officer.

Rounding out safety

The Hazard Communication Standard is far-reaching and sometimes overwhelming, but proper training helps employees understand how it improves safety and be better able to comply.

See these groups of labeling products at newpig.com:

Right-to-Know Signs and Labels

Hazardous Waste Labels

Portable Label Makers

I was browsing the University of Virginia’s Environmental Health and Safety website recently for some safety-related info when some pictures started flashing by. Below them it said, “Images from around the University.”

Image used with permission from UVA

Those who know the mess, know the best! The folks at UVA know who to use!

Do you use New Pig? Are New Pig products around your facility? I would love to see some pics of New Pig products in action!

Email them to me

The tour of historic sites related to industrial  health and safety has concluded. The organizer responded to my email and expressed appreciation for my blog post about the trip. Click here for his blog updates and pictures, including a few of the gang in some serious Personal Protective Equipment for touring a chemical plant.

I’m glad that everyone’s back safe, sound and no doubt even wiser about industrial health and safety.

Image © Stephen Finn – Fotolia.com

Today in the Atlanta airport, a Pigger snapped this picture of a PIG® Leak Diverter Bucket Kit helping keep the floor dry in a crucial spot: at the bottom of an escalator.

Waitaminnit, Atlanta Aiport?! This could be the very same PIG® Leak Diverter Bucket Kit that another Pigger saw being rushed into action during a layover, as chronicled in an earlier post.

Looks like it’s channeling a leak from a duct …

Work hard, Mr. Bucket Kit. Make us proud. You’re probably the most blogged-about Leak Diverter of all time.

“The world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic”

Well, it’s official.  Dr. Margaret Chan of the World Health Organization (WHO) has  raised the world to Level 6.

Before everyone starts scrambling for masks and hunkering down, let’s remember:

1. Yes, this is a virus; and yes, it is contagious.  So is the common cold and many other things. If you’re sick, stay home. Keep a good social distance (whether you’re sick or not).  Wash your hands and avoid touching your face.
2. Remember that not every case of the flu is deadly. Sadly, it is true that people have died from this strain of the flu—but people die from every strain of the flu. MOST people recover without the need for hospitalization or medical care.

Want to know more? WHO has lots of information posted to help educate the public on what they can do to protect themselves.

This is a great idea: A historical tour related to industrial hazards.

It’s 1,100 miles by bus, with five stops covering 150 years of environmental and occupational health and safety: a coal mine, a steel plant, an automotive factory complex, a chemical plant and Love Canal.

The tourists are twenty-five college students and nine faculty from six universities and a range of disciplines including nursing, occupational safety, industrial hygiene and ergonomics. They’ll explore work hazards and share a multitude of perspectives. What a rich experience and great way to reinforce advances made in industry.

Okay, so this trip has a different kind of appeal than a fried-chicken tour, but I think I’d like it more.

This group of tourists is certain to encounter PIG® Absorbents and other PIG® products along the way (though they may not notice them). For that matter, if their bus takes I-99 between the first two stops (Scranton and Pittsburgh), they’ll pass within a few miles of New Pig headquarters.

I’m going to email the organizer offering some New Pig swag to everyone on the tour just because I think this imaginative trip will go a long way toward helping them keep people in industry safe, healthy and productive. Those people are our customers, so we have the same goal.

Kudos to the Historical Perspectives Tour! Here’s a sow-lute from One Pork Avenue as you roll by!

Image © alma_sacra – Fotolia.com