In the workplace and industrial work areas, poor management of a spill is hazardous for both area and people. A spill in a workplace can result in many environmental, health, and financial consequences. Thus, it is necessary for you to have the proper control in place in order to manage spills if it is required to store, transport, or use harmful chemicals. Spill kits can help you in this case.
If you do not have any idea and knowledge about what a spill kit is, then this article is for you. In this guide, we let you know about these kits and the things that you should consider while choosing one for you. These kits can guarantee that you have proper equipment that can control simple spills.
What is a spill kit?
No doubt that spills have surprisingly devastating impacts; therefore, you should be well aware of them as well as always be prepared for them well. For example, if a simple spill occurs while storing, transporting, or using some goods, then having a suitable kit according to the spill can help you clean the mess quickly and cheaply.
Commonly, there are four basic types of kits available in the market today that your business should need and use. Thus, it is important for you to choose the right type of kit for your business depending on the needs of substances you will use, transport, or store.
These four most common types are listed below:
General spill kits:
This type of kit is specially designed and suitable merely for land spills. General spill kits are normally required to clean the non-hazardous liquids. They are able to absorb water-based and oil-based liquid spills, but they are not made for harmful and corrosive liquids.
Oil only spill kits:
These are generally designed for cleaning oil-based and greasy liquids. You can say that they can be used for both water and land spills. The noticeable thing about these kits is that the absorbent involved in these kits can float on water and still be able to absorb oil. Plus, they are also not suitable to use with corrosive and harmful liquids.
Chemical spill kits:
This kit is specially equipped with absorbents and tools that can clean hazardous, corrosive, and aggressive liquids. Plus, these are only for land use. And these adsorbents are able to absorb oil-based and water-based liquids, bases, and acids. In addition, they can be used with corrosive liquids.
Anti-static spill kits:
These are very powerful absorbents that are used for the cleaning of explosive and highly flammable liquids. Moreover, this type of chemical-based absorbents and kits are stored especially in uniquely built cabinets, known as flammables cabinet.
Other than these kits, many other types of kits are available in the market used to contain specific substances that require advanced and more specialized equipment, including body fluid or mercury spill kits.
How to choose the most suitable kit:
While choosing the best and suitable kit that can store and hold enough equipment to manage the size of the spill, for example, storing 120-litre containers in your flammable storage cabinets to manage a 60-litre spill, is not a suitable solution. Therefore, while choosing a kit, you must be careful so that you will not end up choosing the wrong kit.
Spill kit contents checklist:
Here we have listed a checklist that you should check while choosing the right kit. While choosing a kit, you should check that your kit must contain these things:
1. A wheelie bin or other bin:
It is necessary for you to properly label your wheelie bin so that you will be able to access it easily.
2. Absorbent socks:
You should purchase these socks and place them around the edges of a spill to contain them. These socks are basically flexible tubes. As the name implies, these socks are made with absorbent material.
3. Absorbent cushions and pads:
These things should also be purchased so you will be able to use them to drag the liquid back to the spill body if a spill occurs. Plus, the pads are used over the body of the spill to soak up spill liquid.By reading this guide, you will be well-aware of the spill kits and how to choose them