Smoke
coming from an aluminim plant is never a good thing. Here was a recent incident
involving a great deal of smoke one morning last month.
A
fire was recorded at an aluminium factory South America, late one morning in
August 2020. No one was hurt.
A large column of black smoke caught the attention of
those who live near the factory. Videos show that the smoke could be seen
from afar.
According
to company information, the fire was recorded in a foundry wing. Officials
said that recyclable material was loaded into the oven and flammable products
caused an increase in the flames that hit the roof of the shed.
The company said the fire was quickly controlled by
the Unit's fire team. The aluminium company also said that the factory's
activities did not need to be interrupted.
We
are ecstatic that no one was injured in this incident.
We
reached out to our contacts in this country about this incident. Our contacts
received a response back from their plant contact with “ the incident wasn't
even that big”. We do not know the tone of the comment, but we are uncomfortable
with the quote regardless. Why? No incident should be downplayed. Nor should
any incident be expected. This fire occurred with charging painted scrap. Universally,
on our tours around the industry everyone dislikes charging painted scrap. Why
because there are a lot of unknown variables regarding what is coating on the
scrap. As we know in this incident the coating on the scrap was flammable. A
lot of plants specifically reject painted scrap because they do not have the environmental
controls to handle what could possibly go wrong. Some plants have the environmental
controls (dust collectors) to take painted scrap. On our tour of this aluminium
plant in the past we did not see any environmental controls to charge painted
scrap. No doubt they could have added the equipment after our visit.
Regardless, painted scrap has to charged properly to create large flames and
smoke from resulting.
Please
comment.
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