Abrasive Blasting Environmentally-Friendly

How to Keep Your Abrasive Blasting Environmentally-Friendly

Abrasive blasting is a rapid, precision-based, and highly effective means of cleaning, smoothening, eliminating or even roughening up diverse industrial substrates. When brought in comparison with other alternative methods, abrasive blasting is a fairly eco-friendly solution. Best of all, there are a variety of ways to make abrasive blasting operations to be even more environmentally-friendly. Continue reading to find out!

Pick the right abrasive blasting materials

When some people think about the abrasive blasting process, what comes to mind for most is its other name sandblasting. Yet, today, sand is rarely made use of in abrasive blasting operations. This is simply because it has been shown to increase the risk factors of contracting lung disease silicosis. You will always be spoilt for choices when it comes to picking the best eco-friendly abrasive blast media that suits your needs and preferences. This ranges from copper slags, walnut shells, steel grit, bicarbonate of soda, powdered coconut, granular crushed stones to name just a few.
abrasive blasting materials
As you compare abrasive blast media, always go for those that can’t contaminate your work area and all its surroundings. Also, pick those which cannot introduce dangerous new elements into the surrounding environment. Even better, you could decide to choose abrasive blast materials that may be recycled and reused repeatedly in a hassle-free manner. For instance, granular crushed stones have been shown to be devoid of the hazardous silicates that are found in sand. These sorts of abrasive blasting media might also be gathered after operations and reused no less than 5 more times.

Safeguard your HVAC system

The ideal setting for conducting abrasive blasting operations is indoors since such contained environments can effectively curb the spread of abrasive media much better when compared with outdoor environments. Working indoors as well guarantees easier and more convenient after-work cleanup processes. However, there is always a potential risk of abrasive blasting material finding its way into sensitive systems such as HVAC equipment.
HVAC system
You should always initiate and implement measures that will ensure your HVAC systems will remain contaminant-free including spent grit and windblown abrasive particulates. To do so, you will need to power down your HVAC equipment for the duration you will be carrying out abrasive blasting operations. You should then power up the equipment once the dust and particles have been cleared from the work area and its immediate surroundings.

Tarp your outdoor abrasive blasting work areas

There are specific circumstances where performing abrasive blasting indoors might prove to be impractical. When your cleanup operations are happening outdoors, there will always be health, contamination, and safety risks for persons who are positioned in close proximity to the work area.
Tarp
To avoid this, after each operation, make sure you tarp the work area to reduce the likelihood of abrasive blasting material and dust emissions scattering. It won’t totally enclose your outdoor blasting work area since it can give rise to the risk of sending dust downwind across dispersed areas in your commercial property. Make sure you safeguard water reservoirs, surface water bodies and stormwater runoff from coming into contact with abrasive blasting materials, paint chips or even grit waste.

After work cleanup

Environmentally-friendly abrasive blasting operations are never complete without a thorough post-work cleanup process. During this phase, all cleanup actions you take must be implemented to make sure that equipment, property, and areas impacted by the abrasive blasting operation are restored to their pre-work cleanliness. You should also collect waste materials from the process and ensure they are disposed of properly. Should there be any sort of waste that is judged to be particularly toxic, it should then be disposed of in strict accordance with the laid down guidelines that dictate such hazardous disposals. Should you be working with a contractor who lacks the mandatory experience in dealing with hazardous waste disposal, you should consider enlisting the services of an experienced toxic waste disposal firm that can do a professional job.

ZPar International is a foremost maker of first-rate abrasive blasting equipment such as a variety of blasting enclosures, dust collection systems, abrasive blasting reclaim systems and more. We also offer quality paint booths, and spray booths that incorporate the most popular airflows in the market. 

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