When executing any pre-commissioning cleaning project, there are always risks involved for team members and the environment. This risk becomes increasingly evident when chemicals and non-hazardous waste are introduced. Safety should always be a company’s number one priority in these high-stakes conditions, especially when every action might affect the world around them.
In order to operate in a safe and environmentally conscious setting, a company’s quality standards must be high, and leave no room for reproach. If safety standards are not wholly embraced, a project could be compromised, putting the surrounding environment at risk.
As projects progress through construction and into start up, opportunities for an environmental incident grow in number. Incidents may mean bumps in the road for a contractor — but for the customer, they carry much larger implications.
Large fines, penalties, increased scrutiny and regulations are common fallouts. As environmental parameters continue to tighten, customers are put at risk when the companies engaged to perform specialized services are not properly evaluated. In the pre-commissioning cleaning business, this could be the difference in an incident-free project or a hundred thousand gallon, non-hazardous waste spill. B&W Energy Services takes our environmental impact seriously, which is why we’ve taken strides as a company to ensure we minimize the impact of our environmental footprint. One way we’ve addressed this is through our strategic alliance with klean corp international, which allows us to provide an environmentally friendly chemical cleaning solution for our clients.
On the equipment side, cost-cutting choices can prove detrimental to the environment. Hoses must be designed and routinely pressure tested in order to ensure they will withstand the conditions they’ll undergo on the job site. Yet many companies choose to opt out of this procedure because it costs both time and money– valuable assets, but not more important than safety. Plate flanges are commonplace in the industry, but they’re unsafe and unfit for pre-commissioning projects. Companies must make the investment into building spools and fittings with ANSI rated flanges, and per ASME codes. Employee training is another critical piece to ensuring projects are executed safely and without incident. This not only includes training on specific safety and environmental procedures, but in depth service line training to ensure team members are competent in all tasks being performed on the job. This further controls and minimizes risk of a safety or environmental incident.
Ultimately, quality and output should never be compromised for the sake of dollar signs. It is important to remember that in an industry as high-octane and impactful as this, environmental and safety standards don’t just protect the company running a project, they also affect the state of the world around us.