Air Pollution in the Great Indoors

Unless you’re a construction worker or a Park Ranger, chances are that when you work, you work inside either a building or a vehicle. Whether you work in a large commercial office-park or in a century-old (though hopefully updated) assembly plant, you are probably familiar to some extent with the problems and perils presented by indoor air pollution. Air that accumulates and stagnates over the course of a time in one given spot can not only lose some of its breathability, but there’s every chance that hidden pollutants – even trace amounts of them – lurk in various corners of any given workspace or jobsite.

Obvious culprits like oil, gas, kerosene, and coal are only the tip of the iceberg. Think about all the various cleaning products and maintenance procedures that go into upkeep of a facility: all the bathroom cleaners, the spray bottles, the humidifiers, the air conditioners and heaters, and even the dust that gets disturbed by the scuffle of feet or vacuum cleaners – all of it accumulates over time and can generate a lot of problems. In some extreme cases, one might even begin to believe that ongoing maintenance leads to even bigger problems than the short-term solutions it offers, even if a single cleaning by itself is harmless enough. Asthma, pneumonia, and the unseemly phenomenon of humidifier fever can all be contracted through prolonged exposure.

Rip-proof trashcan liners can help
combat contaminant pollution at work.

There are ways, of course, of keeping this all in check. Not only should a building be well-ventilated and consistently updated to conform to current building codes, but managers and workers can take additional steps to prevent indoor air pollution from getting to them. Not only are face-masks a potential source of protecting against the “hazards of the great indoors,” but it’s sometimes good (especially if you work in a factory) to have several large bags of oil dry on hand. Not only that, but certain types of trashcan liners are especially puncture and rip-proof. That way, you’re sure not to get any unnecessary contaminants spoiling your work environment.

Stamar provides many different products in its line-up that let you fight back against air contamination in the interior of a building. Give us a call today; we’re sure to be able to help out.

How to Get the Most Stretch for Your Film

Whoever would have thought that stretch film – that miniscule layer of film that keeps stacked pallets from toppling during warehouse handling and overland transit – would have a total consumption weight of 1 billion pounds per year? Keep in mind that figure accounts for just the United States’ total alone. Given the rising global popularity of stretch film, especially in the newly industrialized nations of Asia, one can only forecast ever more billions of pounds of potential wastage. In sum, all that wafer-thin plastic would require a pretty big wastebasket to fit in.

Part of the reason that so much plastic stretch wrap is used is due to sheer human inefficiency. The typical warehouse day-shift worker will stretch a sheet of film only to 25-50% of its full stretch capacity. Compare this fact to just how far a stretch wrap machine can stretch plastic film around a load of pallets: some machines are in fact capable of stretching well beyond 100% of the theoretical intended amount. If you’re new to buying one of these machines, keep a watchful eye on the web for sales deals at any number of companies, or check out Chicago’s own biannual Pack Expo and meet the manufacturers face-to-face.