Sloppy Shop

In most shops, the chief technician is also the head custodian. That means the same guy who rebuilds transmissions is also the one who’s down on his hands and knees wiping up spills.

Wastewater and other fluids can contain oil, solvents, antifreeze, or other hazardous materials that can drip, leak, or spill onto the floor. Ignore it and even a small spill can become a big pollution problem or, if an employee slips, a major worker’s comp claim. The provinces, which do the majority of environmental enforcement, are kept plenty busy finding violations and issuing civil penalties — up to $5000 for each day out of compliance.

It’s important to plan ahead, developing procedures for everything from minor leaks to major problems. When an accident does occur, the first priority is to determine the size of the spill, and then to follow a plan of action according to how serious it is.

Here are some general techniques to help keep your shop from turning into a mini-Love Canal.

1. Practice prevention. The simplest way to stop spills is to keep fluids from reaching the floor. Use oil caddies or catch pans with diffusing screens to catch splash. Park your batteries, secondary oil and solvent containers, leaking machinery, and greasy parts on spill containment trays. Don’t forget to cover drains or make a barrier to keep spills out, and try to change fluids as far away from drains as possible. Sounds like common sense, but these things aren’t common practice.

2. Sweep it clean. Sweeping the shop floor often keeps oil and grease from mixing with dirt and turning into big clumps. Try a “three-mop” system. Dedicate one mop for antifreeze spills, one for soapy water to mop the shop floor, and use a hydrophobic mop that absorbs only oil, not water or antifreeze.

Don’t use a hose — you’ll create wastewater that can mistakenly be discharged into a sewer or flushed out of the shop into a storm drain.

3. Use the right sorbent. Sorbents come in lots of forms — pads, pillows, mats, sponges, snakes — but there are only two types of sorbent materials: “adsorbents” and “absorbents.” With adsorbency, the liquid stays on the surface of the sorbent material — like oil in a rag, for example. Absorbency occurs when the liquid actually becomes part of the sorbent’s molecular structure. Some sorbents are ideal for oil because they repel water; most are universal and will soak up anything.

Natural sorbents like peat moss, ground-up corncobs, sawdust, rice husks, and clay-based kitty litter are common. You can also buy industrial sorbents like Absorbal or Oil-Dri. Just be sure to check whether the product is natural or contains silica or other chemicals that may be controlled under Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS) rules.

4. Manage your disposal. Costs vary according to the type of spill control product used. Some incinerators, for example, charge less to dispose of a cellulose-based sorbent than a polypropylene or clay sorbent because they burn more completely. Look for a product that offers good bio-degradation and is acceptable to your waste management company. Oil-eating microbes (OEMs) are getting more attention. The main component of oil is hydrocarbons, which OEMs love to eat. These microbes are natural, nontoxic, and convert oil and grease to carbon, carbon dioxide, and water, leaving little waste.

5. Keep it simple. “We’ll use a one-gallon jug to catch oil when we’re draining hubs on the trailers,” says Gerry Monahan, a trailer maintenance supervisor at Toronto-based XTL Transport. “We’ll put it right inside the wheel and drain oil right into the jug before it gets drained into a bigger barrel.” A contracted waste disposal company then picks up the barrel and other collected hazmat and disposes it according to government regulations.

Whatever the type of spill, outline formal control procedures and train your people to use a mop as well as a wrench.