Growing toward a greener, cleaner future. Every year, millions of tons of industrial waste are turned into millions of dollars of reusable materials. CPM and Di Più Systems help make that happen. We’ve joined forces to bring you the world’s best mechanical and hydraulic briquetting technology. Together, we’re taking the fossil out of fuel. “No task at Pinnacle is so important or urgent that it can’t be done safely,” he adds. OWNING SAFETY, EVERY STEP OF THE WAY For more information, visit cpm.net or call 800-428-0846 This focus on safety extends far beyond the construction process. Pinnacle’s safety pro-gram, Owning Safety, is also a key part of the company’s safety culture, and has been implemented across all facilities. “It really starts with our employees, with our Owning Safety program,” Reitsma ex-plains. “It’s a cultural thing that we have made a core part of who we are. When we add people to our workforce, there’s a lot of focus on hiring people who want to live our values. And from there, we back that up with management, training and facilities which are designed to reflect those values.” As part of the operations process at each plant, the managers perform a dust audit. “Every plant has a dust management tool, a check that they do every day going through the plant, checking for dust levels,” Penno elaborates. “It’s rated on a scale of one to five, five being clear of dust, four a minimal amount of dust, and if we ever hit two or three, that means you have to stop and get things clean.” Employees at each plant are also encour-aged to record observations, identifying haz-ards and recognizing other employees’ good safety practices. All plants have emergency response plans in place, such as spill response and emergency evacuation protocols. Thanks to the Owning Safety program and these best practices, Penno says “the workers are very in-tuned to the safety culture.” Owning Safety also applies to the con-tractors Pinnacle work with. “As we select contractors to work for us, we check that they are registered with Work-SafeBC and that they are insured. We check that the mobile equipment the contractors bring onto site are safety certified and we check that the workers they bring to the worksite are certified to do the work required of them,” Penno shares. TECHNOLOGICAL SAFETY of a deflagration inside of a conveyor,” Pen-no explains. “They’re engineered to quench the gas stream while directing the flow at such an angle that minimizes the chance of harm. This relieves the pressure in the con-veyors so the conveyors don’t explode; just the explosion panel itself would pop.” The conveyors and bins at the plant also feature CV Technology fire suppres-sant technology. According to Penno, “They sense a pressure change, and automatically inject a chemical compound into that con-veyor that suppresses an explosion or fire before it can materialize.” In the pneumatic conveyance system a spark detection system from Grecon detects and triggers a suppression of sparks with water. Temperature sensors in the equipment also help prevent fires and explosions. “When a bearing starts to get hot, it alerts and shuts down the drive before we start having a fire,” Penno explains. The facility also features cameras, bin level sensors and Sonic Aire dust control technol-ogy in the ceiling. The fans oscillate and turn in different directions, blowing air to keep dust from accumulating on high surfaces that workers may have difficulty cleaning. Keeping the dust from accumulating is “one of our most important acts of owning safety,” says Penno, “as removing dust from our buildings reduces the risk or chance of a combustible dust explosion from occurring.” WHAT’S NEXT? 1114 E. Wabash Ave., Crawfordsville, IN 47933 Of course, a big part of safety at a pellet plant is installing the proper safety equip-ment, and the Smithers facility features a range of them, such as explosion vents (in-cluding flameless ones) on the conveyors. The flameless vents “pop open if there happens to be a pressure build up because In Penno’s experience, Pinnacle has come a long way with these safety practices. When he joined the company in 2014, WorkSafeBC was concerned about safety at Pinnacle’s plants. But since creating the Owning Safety program, Pinnacle has been working hand-in-hand with WorkSafeBC, Penno says. In fact, he refers to Pinnacle and WorkSafeBC as “partners in safety.” This focus on safety will only continue in the future as Pinnacle grows, Reitsma adds. “Alongside of that, we continue to ad-vance new projects that will increase our production capacity in line with the growth of the market that is set to maintain a 17 to 20 per cent year-over-year growth for the next five to 10 years,” he says. Editor’s note: Speaking of safety, Canadi-an Biomass and its sister publications, CFI and Pulp & Paper Canada , are working with WPAC on the Wood Products Safety Summit in Prince George, B.C. on June 11. Stay tuned for more details.• WINTER 2019 Publication: Canadian Canadian Biomass 14 BIOMASS CBM_CPMGlobal_SeptOct18_CSA.indd 1 Client: Global Biomass Group Order: 1012 Line: 6 2018-09-07 2:03 PM
Canadian Biomass Winter 2019: Page 14
