Blog of Information and Services

Choose the right industrial cleaning company by understanding project needs, evaluating capabilities, and exploring tailored solutions with First Environmental.

Discover expert heavy metal dust abatement services by First Environmental. Ensure safety and compliance for industries like manufacturing and electronics.

Our clients turn to us when they need a solution. Who would have thought that food manufacturing facilities need industrial cleaning or industrial maintenance? If you think about it, a food manufacturing facility is just a chemical facility with a different purpose, they make food products. The chemist in me has to remind others that they are called ingredients instead of chemicals, but the processes can be remarkably similar. They use ovens to heat things up, they use water that is prepared for use in products, they have to keep certain equipment heated/cooled. They use various oils, solids, liquids as ingredients. They have confined spaces, they need external support when the work becomes bigger than the regular maintenance crew can handle (think outages).

Everything You Need to Know About Industrial Pressure Washing

Discover First Environmental's comprehensive industrial cleaning services tailored for planned facility outages. Learn how our expert team minimizes downtime with efficient solutions, including hydroblasting, vacuum truck services, and confined space work. Explore our services and schedule your maintenance today.

Discover how to maintain water jet cutting tables for optimal performance. Learn about effective cleaning methods in our comprehensive guide.

Sampling and analytical are the collection method and test results used to make decisions about certain materials. For First Environmental, this is usually about waste disposal and profiling, but it can also be about abatement or health & safety. We utilize third party companies to do the analytical work, but helping our clients collect samples and finding the most appropriate (or required) test methods and sampling approach is something we get involved in daily. We also use trained experts to monitor specific materials that have toxicity to humans (asbestos, heavy metals). Sampling for disposal purposes The sampling is usually about the characteristics of certain waste materials, and the focus is on physical properties of the waste. Examples such as ignitability, corrosivity and reactivity, as well as various metal and organic materials are derived directly from the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and its supporting regulations found in the Code of Federal Regulations (40 CFR 261). These sampling methods are designed to test for these physical properties or the presence of materials when tested that exceed a specified threshold which is identified in this section. “Totals” analytical provides a quantifiable result about the presence of certain materials in a sample. A TCLP (toxic characteristic leaching procedure) analytical is the basis for RCRA determination. Sampling for each of these items varies according to the test method, but ultimately are about determining whether the waste is hazardous or non-hazardous by these definitions. Treatment, Storage and Disposal Facilities (TSDF’s) have requirements about what types of materials they can receive and manage, including hazardous waste or non-RCRA waste, and this analytical or testing allows them to corroborate their ability to handle it. While the focus here is on hazardous waste, it can also apply to other property types including radioactive, TSCA (Toxic Substances Control Act), etc… 

Discover the essentials of vacuuming solids with First Environmental: key insights into vac truck capabilities, handling various materials, and effective industrial cleaning.

Water Stuff Using water to clean surfaces is as common as it gets. We wash our hands, we clean the dishes, we use a shower to get clean, and so on. This leads to one of our favorite discussions, flow versus pressure. The shower is pretty low pressure, so is the faucet. Even the Grand Canyon is an example of flow that is pretty low pressure (even the rapids). The flow of water will ‘cut’ stuff, it just takes a really long time. Same thing if you’ve ever left the hose on in the backyard for too long and it ‘cuts’ into the soil creating its own canyon. These are low-pressure circumstances. Adding pressure to that water changes a few things, but we are pretty familiar with those effects. If you add a nozzle to a garden hose, the sharper focus can remove/move more effectively. A garden hose without a nozzle moves easy items (leaves, debris…) and with a nozzle it is more focused and moves thicker items (caked on dirt/soil). If we turn that nozzle into a “pressure-washer” at 2000-4000 PSI, it removes certain “dirts/oils” with ease cleaning a patio or driveway making it look like new. When we kick up the pressure, the flow actually decreases, so you start to get the impact of the water in a more focused way where it is used to remove stubborn materials (resins, paints, hardened materials). Using a 10K or 20K water-blaster is a common way to clean tanks, trenches, grates, and other surfaces that get build-up of various types. On our path towards the 40K, it worth noting that a 10K or 20K water-blaster can cut softer materials (fiberglass, plastic, etc…).