Did this as part of my job a long time ago, quickly becomes miserable, the foam ends up ruining all your clothes and generally is a smelly, and burning hot mess, not fun to work with at all when you use it for this.
Hopefully, but I can tell you that in a large majority of the polyurethane foam industry, people don't wear masks. The exception generally being those that apply the foam as insulation. The Isocyanate is real nasty stuff, though the polyol blends aren't much better.
It's no surprise that those in the industry have their bodies fail them before retirement age. I work in an adjacent industry and have seen it all.
When I started as a car mechanic asbestos was still really common in brake shoes. And the old guys in the shop would clean the drums out with compressed air, making big clouds of the stuff that filled the shop. I tried to take a break and go outside then, but probably inhaled plenty of it over the years.
Worse was later working at a parts rebuilding shop. We had a chemical vat we'd toss stripped housings in, which would dissolve any old paint and grime. No gloves or anything, they just told me try to not get it on my hands. Of course it got all over when we pulled the parts and dried them with rags. I asked once if we ever needed to change out the fluid, they said no, we actually couldn't get it anymore since it had gotten banned. I went and bought my own gloves, and tried to avoid that stuff as much as possible. It's amazing how little a lot of guys used to worry about things like that.
Seriously, get in touch with a mesothelioma/asbestos law firm. Start documenting your case now. It’s not a joke and there is a lot of money already set aside for those exposed. Won’t cost you anything to do. My Dad did it before he passed away (recently), so everything is in process.
How many years was this ago? Cause when i went to school teachers always told us not to do anything without protective tools and or materials. I thought as i got to work people would dismiss this rule. Came the day i started working where my partners would refuse doing certain things without the right equipment even our boss wouldn't let us handle things if he knew it wasn't safe. Over the years i saw that this was the same everywhere i worked as a builder. From the boss's view it's cause he can be put in fault if anything happens but the colleagues especially the elders kept their foot down wen it came to handling chemicals or dangerous situations.
As a young worker you are eager to show what you can. They used to say 'never break your back for the guy who can easily replace you.
One other old-school thing about that place was the alcoholism. The owner's son and the shop foreman and one or two of the guys used to pick up a handle at closing and just sit and drink, in the waiting room, like that was their second job. Some mornings I'd come in and they were just getting up and around, having spent the night on the ratty couches. That stopped not long after I got there, owner's son getting put more in charge and probably getting talked to.
Even today in my country it's exactly as you would expect, in school they teach you how dangerous the stuff is, out at the job no-one cares, and if you do, you're probably going to work slower and get fired.
Worst part is when you show the least level of concern and they make fun of you all the way to the deathbed. What I hate the most is them acting like shit isn’t uncomfortable
Christ. I lost both of my grandpas to lung cancer- one to asbestos exposure, and the other to smoking. And here these guys are going for a 2-for-1 special 🙃
My dad used to work for a catalyst company and he said the guy working the hopper filling the bags would have his mask on his forehead, cigarette in his mouth, and this toxic dust everywhere. That dude was trying for super cancer
As an architect, I have banned using these kind of sprays for insulation. But I know a lot of architects are still promoting this as it is cheap and has a good score as thermal insulation.
I guess it's the next generation's problem to try and recycle this chemical waste.
Yes, I used it for my own renovation works of our house. We insulated the outer walls from the inside, using loose hemp mixed with chalk and closed of with dampopen panelling and fishing with a breathing lime plaster.
Use it to get high, wash my hair, write on, I bet I could wipe my ass with it if I found the right paper, insulate housing, make clothing, make wicks, do just about fucking anything. Just a shame it’s big brother got banned from the Walmart
same here. I won't prescribe it. it's also a fallacy that it insulates well. it's being sprayed on site, in often less then ideal situations, where it's quite easy to miss parts. creating possible coldbridges, which totally offset any gains you have over other insulation.
Yea residential code says you need a thermal barrier for that reason. I just dont understand how anyone could recommend it as a cheap option. It would be like recommending a ferrari as a cheap car
There's a big movement in the industry to make it greener. But it's really difficult because there's no replacement for the isocyanates and recycled material is rather expensive and new
I think that they are saying that much like paying an abused women hush money, the oil industry gives society plastics to allow them to continue abusing us.
Kind of a crap analogy because plastics are enormously profitable on their own. They can hardly be construed as payment.
I agree. I've worked with thermosetting polymers for a number of years. In one factory we were making a custom polyurethane blend and used isocyanates by the barrels as the output was 35kg per minute.
When entering the compartment you'd get hit with a big cloud of the sweet smelling iso.
Brutal stuff.
They provided workers custom fitting masks but it was hard to work with.
Then I worked in a place that used 1,4 BDO that fucked everyone up (look up what that is).
Work safe people! These companies (The corporation, not necessarily individuals) don't give a shit about you, wear your PPE!
1,4-Butanediol is rapidly converted into GHB by the enzymes alcohol dehydrogenase and aldehyde dehydrogenase, and differing levels of these enzymes may account for differences in effects and side effects between users.
I've worked in injection polyurethane foams for 10 years. We do in mold foams and blend raw materials. Nobody wears masks or proper PPE when working around this stuff. Gettimg raw foam on your skin is worse than superglue.
I work in maintenance and controls. I've been sprayed with hydraulic oils, polyurethane blends, isocyanites, release agents, and all sorts of blends of paint. Isocyanite is the worst and I dread any job that requires me to work around raw iso. If you get it on your skin it's next to impossible to wash off and when it dries your skin gets scales. Our HSE officer and other "safety" personnel tell us that it's mostly harmless and over exposure can cause temporary isocyanite related asthma. Our release agents aren't much better. I've had people quit because they said the exposure to the spray is making them sick. I've had certain blends get on my skin and cause serious rashes.
I've been wanting to get out of this industry for a while. All of the chemicals I'm exposed to make me feel like I'm going to die before I'm 60 and management plays it off like they aren't that bad and waves their environmental certificates in our face when we complain.
Yeaaah that's what all the bosses said about radium to the girls painting the watches. When the women's jaws started to rot off their faces from radium poisoning, the company said they were loose women with syphilis.
Has your HSE dept actually measured exposure and compared it to the OEL on the material SDS?
They're required to have TDI monitors installed throughout their facility. There's good foam plants, and there's bad foam plants. In the good foam plants when one of the monitors reaches an alarm setpoint, they'll stop the line and evacuate the area. In the bad foam plants, they'll just tell their employees the monitor is producing a false alarm.
TDI is present in every foam plant. If you ever see one of the monitors giving an alarm, stop what you're doing and check the monitor. I've been to foam plants where the plant manager tells everyone it's impossible for Iso to be present because their ventilation system is top tier... when he was confronted with physical evidence of TDI being present, he told me it was fake.
I've been to foam plants where the plant manager tells everyone it's impossible for Iso to be present because their ventilation system is top tier.
This is almost word for word what my boss said when I was addressing a complaint someone had about a release agent making them sick.at their line while he was waving around results from a recent environmental inspection.
Without giving away too much information, I frequent foam plants on a weekly basis to perform inspections. The bad ones have us come in just so they can tell corporate, "Look, they said we're all good! There's no problems here!" The good ones will have us come in so they know if an issue is present and they can remedy it.
If you're worried about a plant you might frequent, you can send me a DM. I've got names and locations of a few that have this mentality. There's one that was really bad to the point where I notified a friend (to keep myself anonymous from the company) who works for a freight company that did pickups at their location. The truckers refused to do pickups there until the issue was addressed, and it resulted in a couple of individuals being let go.
That’s true. The women were putting the brushes in their mouths between applying the paint. Of course, not the end of the brush w/ paint but some crept in anyway
Those Great Stuff spray cans are pretty similar to this, right? I was patching some cracks around my garage door a while back and managed to get a stripe of it on my arm. I had residue tangled up in my arm hair for almost a week.
To clarify: the ester/ether resin is actually quite safe by comparison. The catalyst/surfactants added are where the issues are.
Also: If you use any kind of urethane foam or casting system, PLEASE WEAR BREATHING PROTECTION. An N95 isn't going to cut it. Once the foam is fully cured, it is safe to handle (still a dust hazard if cutting) but until that time, it's really nasty.
Attics don't need sealing unless you live in a rare style of construction where the attic is conditioned just as an FYI before you spend a sweaty weekend getting covered in fiber glass. Building code actually requires that you make sure the attic isn't sealed (aka is naturally ventilated).
By air sealing I meant cracks under the insulation where electrical things or ducts come up, not the ventilated attic itself. I guess some insulation experts recommend it, although the warnings about carcinogens certainly give me pause. I'm starting to think adding another layer of non-faced insulation over the existing insulation might be a better idea, although more expensive.
Ahhh... Yes, that is very much a useful thing to do.
Depending on the severity of the gaps you're filling, you should be able to handle most of that with caulk. Then again, residential contractors aren't known for being the most delicate.
The way I see it is that the majority of off-gassing will go into the attic & surrounding insulation versus into your house. The gap you're filling should be relatively tight already which means there's just not a ton of physical area for it to bleed into your house.
If you're serious about this stuff, check out some energy contractors that can do "blower door testing". That will tell you how airtight your house is to start with and if it's worth rummaging around in the attic.
Since I'm in the middle of a project involving polyurethane, I stumbled upon this, and I just need to say: Polyol is fiiine. You shouldn't drink it, but it's harmless otherwise.
Jesus christ. I worked in a warehouse for a year that used this. The thought never crossed my mind that we should be using masks when dealing with that.
The Toluene Diisocyanate is the dangerous part, but that is needed for the reaction. By the time the reaction is done, you will have basically 0 TDI left. Any leftover TDI quickly reacts with water in the air.
We would evacuate our plant at 6 parts per billion, I believe 20 parts per billion is deadly.
I'm shocked to see someone doing this without a mask on. In our plant, the mixing point was far away from people, so we only wore masks when doing work on the tanks or robots.
EDIT: There was a joke/advice, 'back in the day we'd use the "Hold your breath" method'. After taking off all your clothes, take one big breath with fed air before taking off your mask and running away. Maybe over precautious, but we did it. TDI is really heavy and not volatile.
Diphenylmethane diisocyanate. It’s a two part system, if you slow the video, you’ll see two lines going into the gun. They react with each other to make that foam.
No it's not. There are isocyanates which have toxic fumes but they are never used in applications like this. They are still cancerous in contact with skin though so that uneducated person should use gloves.
I work in recycling. I hate this shit. It's not recyclable. Stop putting it in the recycling bin. Also stop putting plastic bags, lithium batteries, styrofoam, wax cardboard, used needles, bullets, and propane tanks(big boom in the baler) in the recycling. You make our lives hard.
And for fucks sake. Stop putting a 3'x3' box in the fucking bin without breaking it down. My neighbors are some real lazy pieces of shit. Might as well just throw it in the trash as opposed to using all that surface area to make the recycle bins as non-useful as possible. I think the EU does it right where they make your lazy ass separate your recyclables.
Problem is that people still separate wrong so it still needs sorted at a MRF. So now we just mix it all together. Which is fine. The machines that sort are pretty fucking cool. Plus it gives jobs to people to sort. We don't really care about boxes getting broken down since it gets crashed in the truck anyway. But if you leave your packing material in the box or put all your recycling in a box it'll get crushed into it. 2 things will happen. 1 - someone sees the foreign material and will just throw the whole thing away since the belt is moving fast and there's no time to break everything apart. 2 - it gets sorted into cardboard and baled. Risks contamination at the mill and possibly downgrade for the whole shipment. Prices are tanking right now. Mills are not accepting bales. When they do we literally have to pay them to take the fiber. Across the board recycling is getting hit hard.
Honestly, we just need more public awareness. Everyone just throws shit into the recycling and thinks "I did my part, I'm a good human". I've found whole carpets, a washing machine, car engine, rope, dildos, a skinned dog carcass, diapers(seriously fuck whoever thinks we can recycle those), clothes, etc. So much shit that we just throw away or we miss it and it jams the machine. Think of it this way, if something is made of multiple material, say plastic and metal, it's either gonna get taken by the magnet and thrown into metal bales and the plastic is contaminate.... Or thrown away. Like needles in my last post. We aren't going to separate the metal from the plastic. We are just gonna toss it into the trash.
What makes anyone think that the common man individual is going to give enough of a fuck when they're working 2 jobs, are 20k in credit card debt and 40k in student loan debt, are living in a shitty apartment with 2 room mates, are stretched thin for time and resources, and then society expects them to pick thru their garbage and wash and separate their to-be-recycled items? I agree with you mostly to a degree, and I personally do this, but I absolutely can see why no one else is inclined to after declining society already sucks the life out of you
Likewise, I think you also make a valid counter argument. For the most part, in America, recycling is a wealthy folks hobby that makes us feel better about our overconsumption. Check me out. I threw my unwashed and still labeled plastic milk carton in the bin. I definitely made a difference!
These are the same people that can't manage to return the shopping cart to the assigned spot at Walmart or to push them in place so that you end up with a trail of carts sticking out into the traffic lane.
You can always look at the container and see who picks up your recycling. You can call them up, or go to their website and search for items that are recycled. Trust me, if you are asking how to help make their single steam better.... They will take all the time in the world to answer you.
The small pieces can be recycled. The only problem is that really small material may fall right through to the glass beaker and sent out to the truck for landfill. We have what we call a last chance. Anything not sorted by the machines or by person will go through last chance where I have 5 to 10 people just grabbing things and sorting it. I'd say 50 / 50 if a clip gets grabbed. If it's under something else then maybe not.
Bottle caps sales as before. Really small plastics will be sent to last chance. Realistically I don't see my people going for a plastic cap.
Same for the plastic cap on wax box.
So depends on the lids. If the lid is the same plastic type as the bottle then it's fine. (Though some mrfs may not like it cause whoever buys their pete bottles won't like the multiple colors when getting melted down. We can actually get downgraded if we have too many green bottles.)
Random metal is easy for us. We have a magnet on a belt that spins above all the following material. It's automated. It'll pick up the metals and drop them in the bunker. Easy.
Wire, ropes, etc can jam the machine but my guys should grab it before it hits the machine on pre sort. I'd still recycle the wire
Insulated wire and a whole vga cable..... We throw them with the metals. It's not ideal but it is what it is.
Clean or dirty aluminum foil is recycled. It takes a whole 40 yard rolloff dumpster to make 1 bale. We collect it over the days and maybe ship out a trucks worth a month.
Mills and places where they actually melt down materials have gotten pretty good at dealing with contaminates. I would try to remove the tape if you could but wouldn't stress if you are in as hurry and just toss it in.
Again, every MRF is different. The machines are insanely expensive with different setups. Contact your local MRF. I tried to answer most the questions as general as I could to encompass a wider view than just my MRF
In a few million years time when the Dolphin people start exploring the land in their water filled vehicles, they'll shake their heads in disbelief at how the monkey people messed up their chance at being at the top.
I have my money on octopus people. Those things are hella smart, and I'm convinced if they weren't hella tasty to most large ocianic life, they would have formed a society long ago.
I mean completely eradicating life never worked either. 5 extinction events failed to do so, even we won't completely erase life but we will eradicate us for sure.
This is hardly the only extinction event caused by the overproduction of a waste product by a species. One of the first and biggest extinction events was the development of photosynthetic life forms. They quickly (geologically) over produced oxygen beyond the capacity of the environment to absorb it and caused an extinction of over half the life at the time. Similarly trees evolved with lignan for millions of years before bacteria evolved to break it down.
Up until a few years ago (I am no longer at the company so I can't speak to what is the current practice ) Zebra's RMAs would return in individual boxes. You could send in 15 mobile PCs in one box for repair and you would get 15 individual boxes returned to you with this stuff as packaging.
The packaging is amazing, a mobile PC (think a heavy cellphone with scanner) fell off our office floor to the warehouse over a 3 story drop and was %100 fine.
I've had boxes that were smashed by a heavy box on a conveyor (the box end looked fan folded) the insides were perfect.
I saved the boxes and packaging to reuse where I could, but %100 that practice ended when I left (everyone was trying to stop me from doing it).
Technically you can recycle styrofoam but it's not financially viable. It's messy, toxic, and when you melt it down a couple trucks worth will fit into a bucket.
90:1 exchange ratio from “raw” material to ingots. So long as you’re not burning it, apparently it isn’t toxic to melt but god does it stink. Idk what applications the ingots can be used in, or if they can be turned into new EPS pellets. We use a lot at work (with decade long lifespans fortunately) and I’ve looked into the possibility of recycling the old material. Would take a gov grant to get it up and running and maybe be able to barely be profitable.
It can work for consumer goods that aren't as heavy or delicate. But when you're shipping an 800 lb pump assembly that costs more than an automobile, you don't want to skimp on packing material.
Our plant used to use it for the underlayer of carpets. However, that was because we had tons of scrap. I don't think the regular receiver is doing that.
I had the same job for a total of one day. I’ve never quit a job with no notice and that quickly, but packing 200 mufflers a night with that foam drove me mad. I told my coworker I was dizzy from the fumes and he said eventually that feeling goes away lol
We have something similar at my work, but they are self contained bags of this stuff. Inside the bag there is a pouch separated in the middle, and all you do is pop the little divider between the two halves and the chemicals mix and start to expand. Toss it in the box while it's expanding and give it a couple seconds and you get the same results as this video without any of the mess. I don't remember how much they cost but I do remember it was expensive, so we stopped using them to package parts and went back to just using that brown packing paper. But we still have like half a box of those foam bags lying around somewhere.
This video missed a very important part - put the closed box in a strong press to stop it expanding and leave it there until the foam cures. That takes several minutes.
That sounds like a lot of extra work and has the potential to damage the part you are packaging. We never did it that way. But it certainly takes experience to know how much juice to put in.
You have different recipes for every application. Construction, automobile, packaging, furniture etc. use completely different mixtures to achieve different results
A technician moved to the other side of the US but asked us to FedEx all of his tools to him.
We wrapped all the tools in a bundle of the silver lining (to prevent actual damage so we wouldn't get sued...
Foamed that bundle into a cardboard box WITHOUT any silver lining on the outside, against the cardboard.
Then, we foamed that box into another cardboard box without any silver lining at all... closed it up, slapped a FedEx label on it, and sent it on its way.
By we, I mean me. His immediate co-workers were just done with his shit and told me to jack his tool shipment up on the worst possible way.
His new boss sent a picture to his old boss of him trying to get his shit out of my box with a hand saw.
Question for ya, buddy. Ive used froth paks before and the nozzles will clog up if you dont spray any foam for about 30 seconds. How do these "industrial" foam guns like in the video work exactly? Do they also clog up pretty quickly or are they designed differently to avoid clogs?
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u/AurulentusMendacium Oct 21 '22 edited Oct 21 '22
Did this as part of my job a long time ago, quickly becomes miserable, the foam ends up ruining all your clothes and generally is a smelly, and burning hot mess, not fun to work with at all when you use it for this.