ABSORBENT WRINGERS – SAVING YOU MONEY, MATERIALS AND THE ENVIRONMENT

In this article, Steve Moorey of Industry Superstore – the online source for industrial, factory and premises management equipment and consumables – looks at absorbent wringers and why they make an excellent investment for your company by improving absorbents life and creating efficiencies for your bottom line by reducing waste.

Disposing of oil and other containments recovered in absorbent pads is a daily problem, with many companies often losing precious raw materials – such as oil from accidental spills or during day-to-day overflow leakage while handling coolants and hazmat liquid chemicals – through their inability to recover valuable resources after absorption. This inability to recover these fluids can prevent companies from meeting environmental standards by forcing them to waste or dispose of fluids when they could be recycling them.

Additionally, the expense of using universal absorbent mats or pads just once before disposal quickly adds up. As do the monthly bills of paying for waste removal services.

However, using an electric or manual (hand) absorbent wringer can easily solve these problems by increasing the lifecycle of absorbent materials, enabling you to keep and reuse or repurpose the liquids you recover and therefore improve your environmental compliance.

What are the benefits of using an absorbents wringer?

In short, their return on investment is excellent. On average, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that a hand wringer pays for itself in just three-to-five weeks, with cost savings quickly adding up by spending less on supplies and reducing waste disposal costs. Imagine buying your absorbents by the box instead of high-volume pallets!

Help your business go green!

A hand wringer allows you to recycle fluids, improving your environmental compliance. This efficient chemical recovery and collection system aides waste stream separation, allowing you to meet waste minimisation goals by sending less materials to landfill, which can also help minimise risks from potentially leeching toxic hazmat chemicals. 

Save money on annual operation spend!

By utilising an electric or hand absorbent wringer, the EPA reports annual savings of 51-75% on the purchase of new absorbent mats and pads, not to mention reducing overall spend on chemicals. That’s because you can easily recover fluids so they last longer, your purchase frequency reduces, and you’ll be reducing your monthly waste disposal management services bill.

Which absorbents can you wring and re-use?

Mats and pads are examples of absorbent supplies you can wring and re-use, which means you can extend the service life of the most common contents found in spill kits. Additionally, you can also improve the drying process for wet industrial floor or ground protection mats, and fabric shop rags and wipes.

Once you finish a spill clean-up, be it from an IBC or drum leak, wet absorbents can be passed through an absorbent wringer to easily recover and recycle the waste fluids. However, recovered fluids must be non-flammable, which typically excludes many solvents, paints, or combustible fuels.

What options are available?

Having been used comprehensively in the USA and now offered to UK and European markets exclusively via Industry Superstore, the SRM-22 spill recovery machine is just one example and features dual-driven, chemical-resistant rollers.

Two models are available, the standard SRM-22 hand-cranked version or SRM-22e with integrated electric motor drive. Both models feature two 38cm heavy-duty rollers through which saturated absorbent mats and pads are effortlessly drawn to extract the fluids, which are then collected in either a connected 45-gallon (204 litre) drum or 5-gallon (22 litre) plastic container placed on a wheeled trolley.

In tests conducted by Industry Superstore, it was found that using the SRM-22 with highly-absorbent, polypropylene pads was an ideal combination for the recovery of oils and chemicals.