Hennig Helps

Advancing Pit Safety Across Industries: Chemical Plants

January 29, 2019

Facility Safety

A recent (2017) crisis at the Arkema Chemical Plant in Texas exposed significant flaws in regulating chemical safety, risk disclosure and emergency planning. Since then, the Environmental Protection Agency has been re-evaluating federal environmental laws to tighten safety regulations on the nation’s vast chemical industry.

Chemical agents are toxic and highly flammable, making chemical manufacturing plants extremely dangerous not only for employees at the plant, but also for the large area around it. Thus, safety at chemical facilities should be a top priority because it can pose public safety and serious environmental issues. The most common injuries for workers that occur at chemical facilities are chemical burns, trips, falls and inhalation of hazardous chemicals.

A manufacturing facility that makes personal protective equipment, contacted Hennig in search of a cover for their chemical dip tanks due to fume vapors. These fumes accumulate in enclosed room, thus compromising the air quality. In trying to reduce employee exposure time, they determined that rather than a standard removable cover that is difficult to remove and maintain, they wanted an automated pit cover that did not require a manual removal. Hennig designed and installed a cover that was exactly what customer had in mind.

These retractable covers became the latest and best solution for chemical industry applications. The cover helps with air quality as well as protects workers from injuries, falls and chemical burns.  Typically, people are more likely than not to take shortcuts while using protection devices that are difficult to use. Therefore, here at Hennig we pride ourselves on building pit covers which are easy in installation, operation and maintenance, and also can hold the weight of a person.

When it comes to chemical facilities, the hazards cannot be completely eliminated as they are a part of the process. However, the best option today for companies, striving to safeguard employees and the environment from a potential disaster, would be installing protection devices, which have become a necessary part of day-to-day operations.



Hennig Pit Cover designed to protect a customer's dip tank.
 
Hennig Pit Cover with Dip Tank

Hennig Pit Cover installed over the customer's dip tank.
 

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