Protecting the Health of Workers During an Annual Outage at an Energy-from-waste Plant

Project Overview

Enfinium is one of the UK’s leading innovators in resource recovery and recycling, committed to transforming waste for a climate-positive future. With 4 Energy from Waste operational facilities across the UK, and 2 in construction, Enfinium diverts 2.3 million tonnes of unrecyclable waste from landfill each year.

During planning of an annual outage, Enfinium identified hazardous activities such as welding, burning, cutting and grinding within the grate area and confined spaces could put workers at high risk of exposure to the fumes generated during these tasks.

Challenge

Whilst planning for the outage, Enfinium identified two major challenges caused from the hot works being carried out.

Firstly, the risk to contractor worker’s long-term health if they were exposed to harmful fume. With the works being carried out within a confined space, the exposure risk was heightened.

Secondly, the reduction in productivity. If fumes were left to build up and create visibility challenges, this would increase the need for breaks which could impact the outage timeline.

Solution

RVT Group Consultants who specialise in industrial hazard controls, visited the facility to assess the work area and to understand what challenges could arise, before recommending a fully compliant, temporary hire solution that was suitable for Enfinium’s requirements.

We recommended and installed our VENTEX^® Centrifugal Fan 200S-HP, paired with 100mmØ flexible hosing, and a DUSTEX^® SuperFilta 40, drawing the contaminants through a pulse-jet filter cleaning system, and in-line HEPA filtration unit.

The filtration system we used offered 3-stage HEPA filtration, the most efficient filter available on the market. The fan captures airborne hazards such as welding fume, burning fume, and smoke, and filters out harmful particles, before expelling safe, clean air.

HEPA filters an impressive 99.97% of 0.3-micrometer air particles.

HEPA filtration was imperative on this outage to protect the workers from the hazardous fumes, and keep the environment comfortable to work in.

We used 100mmØ flexible hoses on this outage to help minimise obstructions, and for the ease of relocation as the work progressed. Alongside this hosing, we used magnetic capture hoods which enabled Enfinium’s contractors to maintain full flexibility as works progressed to different locations.

The outage was delivered successfully, with the work force protected, and excellent productivity levels maintained, even with emerging works.