Wednesday, April 30, 2014

What You Should Know About Containment Berms

By Tracie Knight


Pollution and spills are one of the greatest environmental problems of this day and age. When it does occur it can affect communities and sometimes even nations. It is a problem that needs to be addressed right away when it occurs through sound decision making processes, use of modern technology and containment like containment berms that are mostly part of modern containment systems.

Many who believe that berms are modern inventions and contraptions would be quite mistaken. They are not new ideas and have been used by medieval castle builders and even early North American Indians. The former used it to keep waste materials at bay while the latter used it in irrigation and channeling of water and waste.

Many kinds of spills differ from each other. They can differ in the way they cling or not cling to the ground, the way they are absorbed or how thick and fast their flow is. Thus due to these differences there will be different berm requirements. Most common designs for spill containment equipment are square or rectangular in nature with raised embankments on each of the four sides.

The rectangular and square type of containment designs look much like small shallow inflatable swimming pools for children. In fact the only difference would be that the walls and depths are much shallower in the containment unit, as well as being durable and resilient as well. It is these qualities that make them quite suited for flat ground applications especially near roads. They are quite popular in their being used during discharging and loading operations of tankers and liquid carriers, so as to minimize loss and pollution.

The most important part of these systems used for roadside discharge and filling operations are their walls. As tires will be running back and forth over the walls, they should be resilient enough to keep their shape so as to keep the integrity of the system intact. This is very important where these systems are used with vehicle applications.

Although the rectangular and square designs are common, these are not the only shapes. They can come in many customizable shapes depending on the need. This is because many different kinds of surfaces, many being rough and having different kinds of absorptive capacities. Many of these berms can be customized to adjust to differing roughness and angles of the land through the use of customizable connectors and differing matting and flooring.

Specialized berms are also made of more special and better materials. These that are developed today are eco friendly and can be disposed of in a safe and environmental friendly way. They are also able to adjust to any surface no matter how sharp and still retaining their integrity.

Should you want to buy these systems they are not hard to look for. If you are connected to the internet it is best to use the keywords spill containment and spill management systems to make the search easier. You can also do this if searching manually through Yellow Pages and local ad papers if needed.




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