Thermalspray environmental compliance costs

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Continuing our discussion of the hidden and often times overlooked costs in thermal spray coatings processing, costs associated with the environmental compliance issues in thermal spray coatings facilities will be the focal point of this post. Thermal spray environmental compliance has taken on a life of its own in recent times, with countless numbers of laws and regulations in place and more environmental laws that affect the thermal spray industry being enacted more frequently than ever before.

Regardless of whether you are an environmental wacko as Rush Limbaugh terms some people, whether you are a reasonably sane environmentally conscious person or if you have an environmentally irresponsible outlook on things, regardless of which category you belong to, as long as you are involved with the thermal spray industry, you will have to obey the laws that are already in the books, failing which significant monetary harm could result for your thermal spray company. The environmental regulations, needless to say, vary quite a bit from one country to another and sometimes are quite distinct from one region or state within the country to another. So, it behooves that you be well aware of the laws in your own locality in addition to federal or national environmental laws as it pertains to your thermal spray operations.

The costs associated with environmental compliance have to be somehow worked into your thermal spray costing sheets; otherwise who is going to pay for these costs? There are three types of environmental compliance costs that need to be identified. The first is the capital equipment costs associated with being in compliance. These costs will come under capital equipment and these are not the focal point here. Items in this category may include things such as fume hoods and dust collectors . These costs will flow down just like the other capital equipment such as thermal spray robots and such. The second category is the on-going repeating costs of environmental compliance such as hazardous waste shipments of degreasing fluids, stripping chemicals, thermal spray dust collections and so on. These are costs that occur once or twice every year and more often depending upon the volume of these items generated. Such costs will have to get amortized over the number of jobs performed annually and then worked down to the thermal spray costing sheets.

A third category that cannot be overlooked is the cost of administering the environmental compliance programs in your thermal spray facility. Some large companies may have a dedicated individual that spends their entire time in ensuring compliance. Some smaller firms may have an engineer who is assigned a part time task of environmental compliance. These tasks may include filing of environmental compliance reports, collecting and maintaining air quality data, updating environmental compliance procedures, inspecting point air emissions and so on. The labor cost of this individual needs to be considered when considering environmental compliance costs. Thus one can observe that the costs associated with thermal spray environmental compliance cannot be overlooked when determining the costs of individual thermal spray jobs.

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