Each year, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) hands out millions of dollars in fines to organizations across the U.S. for safety violations in the workplace. Among the possible violations is the use of toxic chemicals, or the failure to implement proper safety measures when using dangerous chemicals.
OSHA Chemical Safety Cases
When we at Ecolink talk about using safer industrial chemicals, we often discuss benefits safer chemicals have for the short-term and long-term health of workers. Because we’re not a regulatory agency, we often stop short of discussing penalties that could result from not using safer industrial chemicals or more effective protective measures against chemical exposure.
However, while it’s our business to levy fines, the fines OSHA levies are public record, and deserve to be discussed to show the financial fallout that can result from companies violating OSHA chemical safety rules. Below are four recent cases that show how costly violations can be.
- Solvay Specialty Polymers USA LLC | Fine: $115,000
In summer 2016, the South Jersey polymer manufacturer was fined six figures for “three repeat and eight serious safety violations.”
In the official report, OSHA states, “Our inspectors focused on vinylidene fluoride, a liquified flammable gas, [which] poses serious safety and health risks to employees, including fire and explosion hazards, frostbite, skin and lung irritation, and liver damage associated with chronic exposures. An effective process safety management program is needed to protect workers and prevent the catastrophic release of highly hazardous chemicals.”
- PPG Industries | Fine: $92,642
In autumn 2016, the Louisiana-based chemical manufacturer was fined nearly six figures for “nine serious and two other violations”.
According to the official report, OSHA explains that, “The violations found… are disturbing. Not inspecting safety relief valves endangers workers and could have catastrophic consequences… This employer must take all necessary steps to correct these issues and take the safety of its workers seriously.”
- Harcros Chemicals Inc. | Fine: $80,000
In spring 2016, the chemical manufacturer received a nearly six-figure fine for “14 serious violations”.
From OSHA’s official report: “When highly hazardous chemicals are not properly controlled, there is a potential for unintentional release, which could result in serious health and safety implications for workers and the neighboring community… Companies that manufacture chemicals must thoroughly train workers and monitor procedures used in the process for needed changes.”
- Quest Diagnostics | Fine: $152,000
In summer 2016, Quest Diagnostics was find six figures for chemical hazard violations at a Shelton, Connecticut, location.
As OSHA’s official report explains, “A laboratory chemical hygiene plan is not a paper exercise. It’s a continuous ongoing process that is key to preventing employees from being sickened by the hazardous chemicals with which they work. Our inspection found several serious deficiencies concerning the Shelton laboratory. For the safety and health of its employees, Quest must ensure that correct and effective safeguards are in place and in use at all its laboratories.
Conclusion
When considering the potential cost of chemical safety violations, OSHA fines are just the beginning. There’s also sick days, workers compensation, chemical injury lawsuits, and damaged business to consider.
It should also be noted that OSHA fines organizations repeatedly, until they fix the cause(s) of the initial fine. In combination, these factors can truly decimate a bottom line and literally force the use of safer industrial chemicals and/or better protective measures.
The best way to avoid the multifarious financial drawbacks of toxic chemicals is using safer industrial chemicals. This is what we specialize in, helping organizations replace toxic solvents with ones that are just as powerful, have a better safety profile, and may even cost less. To inquire about our solutions, call us today at (800) 563-1305, or send us an email through our contact form.
Industrial IPA Solvent Suppliers: Questions to Ask Before You Buy
/in IPA/by Industrial DegreasersIf you need industrial strength IPA — which generally has a purity of at least 99% — crossing suppliers of commercial grade and consumer grade IPA off the list, and limiting your choices to industrial IPA suppliers, is an easy way to narrow your field of options. You can refine your selection of IPA solvent suppliers further by asking the following five questions.
Working with IPA solvent suppliers that offer custom formulations is highly recommended. It helps prevent ordering a stock solution that works well in some respects but not in others. This problem is easily avoided when you work with a custom solvent supplier.
The chance to order custom solvents is a great option, but the ultimate value is determined largely by how quickly you can receive a custom order. If productivity is at stake, find out the maximum turnaround time for a custom solvent shipment before placing the order.
The last thing you want is a large supply of IPA solvent that doesn’t work as well as expected. The surest way to keep it from happening is requesting a free test sample before placing an order. Ecolink provides a free test sample for each of our solvents.
It’s relatively common phenomenon: An organization orders 99% pure IPA, and then finds the purity is lower after receiving the order and testing its IPA density. What happened? There’s a good chance the IPA container is to blame. Unless the seal is designed to withstand the vapor pressure of IPA, the alcohol can evaporate and weaken the formulation.
Solvent ingredients the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates can’t be used in quantities that most large-scale users require. Consequently, ordering from IPA solvent suppliers whose products contain ingredients that are scheduled for regulation is like living on borrowed time. IPA solvent suppliers that offer environmentally-prefered solvents is the best option.
Contact Us Today
Ecolike is one of your best options among IPA solvent suppliers for several reasons, including the availability of both stock and custom IPA formulations, the availability of environmentally preferred solutions whose ingredients aren’t regulated by the EPA, and the option to order practically any volume of IPA, on any supply schedule, just to name a few.
To place an order for IPA solvent, or to learn about additional advantages of choosing us over other IPA solvent suppliers, please contact us today by calling 800-563-1305, or send us an email using the contact form on our website. We take pride in supplying best-in-class industrial IPA solvents!
Cutting Chemical Usage: What are Your Best Options?
/in Chemical Usage/by Industrial DegreasersCutting down on chemical usage is something many organizations in the industrial sector would like to do, but they lack resolve. It’s easier to keep using chemicals that work like a charm — and view negative safety factors as an inevitable part of the equation — than hassle with implementing other strategies and potentially deal with a temporary dip in productivity.
However, this view of cutting chemical usage ignores four options that are easy to implement from perspectives of cost, turnaround time, and productivity. If cutting chemical usage is one of your organization’s New Year’s resolutions, below are four reduction strategies that can help make it a resolution you keep.
Do you use chemicals that an experienced solvent manufacturer helped you pair with your cleaning operations? Are the chemicals the best fit for their applications? If not, cutting chemical usage could be as simple as switching to more efficacious chemicals. The more power a chemical has to produce the desired effect, the less you use to achieve the effect. The key is choosing a cleaner whose increased strength doesn’t create additional safety issues.
We often think of industrial cleaning as being synonymous with applying harsh cleaning chemicals, but the green movement has inspired the creation of industrial grade, non-chemical cleaners that remove exceptionally tough accumulations. High-power citrus degreasers are an example of these new generation cleaners, some of which have the added benefit of biodegradability.
Some types of chemical cleaners can be recycled and reused. For example, when used with a parts washing machine that supports solvent recycling, vapor degreasers can be recycled through a process of condensation that returns the recycled cleaner to the solvent basin. In addition to cutting chemical usage for environmental reasons, cutting chemical use in this fashion can be a big money saver.
Not using the optimal form of a cleaner for a specific application can lead to overusing chemicals. For example, if you use pump spray instead of aerosol to degrease electrical equipment that has complex geometries, you may be using far more cleaner than necessary, as evidenced by waste cleaner readily entering the waste trap.
Sometimes, simply changing the form in which you use a cleaner — as opposed replacing the cleaner with a new one — can help with cutting chemical usage.
Need Help Cutting Chemical Usage?
If so, Ecolink has cost effective options that could be exactly what you need to achieve the goal. We offer highly efficacious, solvent based and aqueous based cleaners in stock and custom formulations. In addition, we provide free product samples, so you can test our solutions before you buy.
For information on reducing chemical usage with our eco friendly cleaners, call us today at (800) 365-1305, or send us an email through our contact form, to schedule a free consultation. We look forward to reviewing your operations and seeing what we can do to help!
Eliminating Chemical Waste: 6 Strategies
/in Chemical waste/by Industrial DegreasersThe first thing to understand about eliminating chemical waste is that it doesn’t require eliminating the use of chemicals. It may involve reducing chemical use, but the goal is to prevent chemical waste and the problems it creates for human safety, the environment, and the finances of companies that have industrial chemical needs.
Strategies for Chemical Waste Elimination
If your organization wants to eliminate chemicals from the waste trap, you may need to take more than one measure to achieve the goal (depending on the chemicals you use, in what form you use them, and to what extent). Below, we list six strategies that are helpful for any organization that’s focusing on eliminating chemical waste.
Could some tasks be performed with substances other than chemicals? For example, could cleaning of general surfaces be performed with a vinegar / water mixture instead of chemicals? If so, it’s a step you can take toward eliminating chemical waste.
If avoiding chemicals isn’t an option, determine if any non-biodegradable chemicals you use can be replaced with biodegradable ones. Waste from the latter can safely biodegrade without harming the environment and — unlike many non-biodegradable chemicals — needn’t end up in a chemical landfill.
Recyclable chemicals eliminate chemical waste for as long as they are recycled. If you use a vapor degreaser in a parts washer that can recycle the solution, none of the product is wasted while it remains fit for use. Because most chemicals can’t be recycled forever, solvent recycling via parts washing systems is more of a waste mitigation strategy than a waste elimination technique.
Highly evaporative cleaners can fill the air with Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAP) if they have a toxic formulation, but they essentially produce no liquid waste. Fast dry times are common among cleaners used for certain types of metal and electrical equipment. There’s also the option of ordering a custom cleaner formulated to have an exceptionally fast evaporation rate.
Aerosol cleaners tend to produce little if any waste due to their unique method of dispersal. With the press of a button, thousands of infinitesimal particles spread across the cleaning surface, and tend to evaporate quickly unless the object is highly saturated and left to drip dry. When aerosol cleaners can be used without saturating the cleaning surface, they largely eliminate chemical waste.
In some cases, a chemical is overused — producing a significant amount of waste — simply because it isn’t a good fit with the application. Switching to a more efficacious solution may not eliminate chemical waste altogether, but it could result in a significantly lower volume of use.
About Our Company
Ecolink is a provider of environmentally safe and environmentally preferred industrial cleaners. Depending on how and why you use industrial chemicals, we may have solutions that can assist with eliminating chemical waste and the issues it poses. In addition to supplying stock solutions, we produce custom cleaners, and provide free test samples prior to purchase.
To see if we can help your organization with eliminating chemical waste, call us today at (800) 563-1305, or use our contact form, to schedule a free consultation. We look forward to learning about your requirements and seeing how we can help!
Solvent Solutions: Options for Reducing Harmful Chemicals
/in Solvents/by Industrial DegreasersIt’s a common situation at many organizations that have industrial solvent cleaning needs: Solvents containing harmful chemicals are used for business-critical cleaning operations, but they are used at the expense of potentially harming workers and the environment.
In this entry, we look at five options for reducing harmful chemicals during industrial parts cleaning operations — or reducing the capacity of the chemicals to cause harm — with options listed from most to least preferable based on cost, effectiveness, and overall feasibility.
The best option for reducing harmful chemicals is replacing solvents that contain them. Ecolink can tell you precisely which chemicals to avoid, and why. As a general point of reference, focus on avoiding solvents containing chemicals listed in the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Lists of Lists.
Using a sealed parts washer that doesn’t emit fumes is another good option, as long as your soiled parts can fit in the unit. Exposure may can further reduced if you can use a parts washer that recycles a single application of solvent, making it usable for multiple cleaning cycles.
If there’s no way to avoid Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAP) from a critical cleaner, putting a barrier between workers and HAPs in the form of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is the next best option. High-level PPE is expensive, but so is paying workers comp claims and settling chemical injury lawsuits.
Air filtration systems that are specially designed to snare airborne contaminants can dramatically reduce HAP density in the air of the work environment. But it’s a strategy you should combine with others in this list to achieve a high level of protection. Combining targeted air filtration with PPE, for example, may all but eliminate the threat.
In industrial cleaning circles, the term “sealed glove box” refers to a relatively small, sealed glass unit that has built-in holes through which laboratory grade gloves can reach inside, and manipulate objects. A sealed glove box could be used to increase safety when cleaning with toxic substances. However, the cleaning operation would be slow, and laboratory grade glove boxes can be quite costly.
Shopping for Non-Toxic Chemicals?
If so, Ecolink is a great destination to find them. There are lots of options for reducing harmful chemicals from industrial cleaners, but replacing them with safer cleaners is the most effective by far.
This is what we help companies do, providing stock and custom solutions that have as much cleaning power but a better safety profile than many old generation solvents. Before purchasing, request a free product sample to see how well one of our solutions really works — no strings attached.
To get started on reducing harmful chemicals by replacing toxic cleaners, call us today at (800) 563-1305, or send us an email through our contact form. We look forward to helping you improve chemical safety in the workplace!
Safer Industrial Chemicals: When OSHA Does the Talking
/in Industrial Degreasers/by Industrial DegreasersEach year, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) hands out millions of dollars in fines to organizations across the U.S. for safety violations in the workplace. Among the possible violations is the use of toxic chemicals, or the failure to implement proper safety measures when using dangerous chemicals.
OSHA Chemical Safety Cases
When we at Ecolink talk about using safer industrial chemicals, we often discuss benefits safer chemicals have for the short-term and long-term health of workers. Because we’re not a regulatory agency, we often stop short of discussing penalties that could result from not using safer industrial chemicals or more effective protective measures against chemical exposure.
However, while it’s our business to levy fines, the fines OSHA levies are public record, and deserve to be discussed to show the financial fallout that can result from companies violating OSHA chemical safety rules. Below are four recent cases that show how costly violations can be.
In summer 2016, the South Jersey polymer manufacturer was fined six figures for “three repeat and eight serious safety violations.”
In the official report, OSHA states, “Our inspectors focused on vinylidene fluoride, a liquified flammable gas, [which] poses serious safety and health risks to employees, including fire and explosion hazards, frostbite, skin and lung irritation, and liver damage associated with chronic exposures. An effective process safety management program is needed to protect workers and prevent the catastrophic release of highly hazardous chemicals.”
In autumn 2016, the Louisiana-based chemical manufacturer was fined nearly six figures for “nine serious and two other violations”.
According to the official report, OSHA explains that, “The violations found… are disturbing. Not inspecting safety relief valves endangers workers and could have catastrophic consequences… This employer must take all necessary steps to correct these issues and take the safety of its workers seriously.”
In spring 2016, the chemical manufacturer received a nearly six-figure fine for “14 serious violations”.
From OSHA’s official report: “When highly hazardous chemicals are not properly controlled, there is a potential for unintentional release, which could result in serious health and safety implications for workers and the neighboring community… Companies that manufacture chemicals must thoroughly train workers and monitor procedures used in the process for needed changes.”
In summer 2016, Quest Diagnostics was find six figures for chemical hazard violations at a Shelton, Connecticut, location.
As OSHA’s official report explains, “A laboratory chemical hygiene plan is not a paper exercise. It’s a continuous ongoing process that is key to preventing employees from being sickened by the hazardous chemicals with which they work. Our inspection found several serious deficiencies concerning the Shelton laboratory. For the safety and health of its employees, Quest must ensure that correct and effective safeguards are in place and in use at all its laboratories.
Conclusion
When considering the potential cost of chemical safety violations, OSHA fines are just the beginning. There’s also sick days, workers compensation, chemical injury lawsuits, and damaged business to consider.
It should also be noted that OSHA fines organizations repeatedly, until they fix the cause(s) of the initial fine. In combination, these factors can truly decimate a bottom line and literally force the use of safer industrial chemicals and/or better protective measures.
The best way to avoid the multifarious financial drawbacks of toxic chemicals is using safer industrial chemicals. This is what we specialize in, helping organizations replace toxic solvents with ones that are just as powerful, have a better safety profile, and may even cost less. To inquire about our solutions, call us today at (800) 563-1305, or send us an email through our contact form.