Many fine suppliers applied for USA’s annual Continuous Improvement award, which was awarded in January of this year. Though we couldn’t give awards to all of these suppliers, we wanted to, so throughout the year we are going to spread the word about the good things our suppliers have been up to. This article is the first in a series of articles spotlighting our Continuous Improvement award finalists and the innovative things they are doing in the nuclear industry and for the world.
As evidenced in their Continuous Improvement Award application, UniTech Services, who supplies USA members with launderable protective clothing and has been a USA Supplier-Partner since 2004, has been committed to protecting the environment for more then a decade. In 2003, UniTech’s Springfield, Mass. location became the first of the UniTech plants to develop an environmental management system and receive certification to the ISO 14001 environmental standard. Now, all of the UniTech plants are ISO 14001 certified.
UniTech voluntarily participates in the Electric Utility Supplier Sustainability Survey each year, which provides an open forum for measurement and commitment to continual environmental improvement. UniTech has also commissioned an independent Life Cycle Analysis report to study the cradle-to-grave impacts of its products (the full report can be obtained at http://www.unitechus.com/content/news/lca_study.php).
During the past 18 months UniTech has contracted an independent chemist to review their wash process, resulting in a reduction of water effluent by 20% and a reduction of radiological rejects by 30%. During the same period UniTech modified their Macon, GA facility to be a garment reclamation facility. This facility reclaims both radiological and damaged garments to be put back into service, therefore extending the life of the garments, reducing costs and minimizing radioactive waste.
UniTech has also demonstrated its commitment to the environment in even more innovative ways. Recently, UniTech successfully decontaminated an airlock for USA member Public Service Electric and Gas (PSEG). The airlock came from Illinois’ Zion Nuclear Power Station, which is in the fourth year of a 10-year dismantling process. Now PSEG will use this airlock, which allows passage between environments with different air pressures or gases, for training in its Salem Station in New Jersey.
To prepare the airlock for its new purpose, UniTech grit blasted and used an environmentally friendly biodegradable paint stripper to remove multiple layers of coatings. This allowed for direct surface radiological monitoring for both loose and fixed contamination. In addition to performing the loose contamination surveys, technicians took direct measurements on over 1,100 unique locations on the airlock using a proprietary survey protocol developed by UniTech Corporate Health Physics.
After successfully decontaminating and surveying the airlock, UniTech transported it to Salem Station, where it will serve as a useful tool in training employees.
This commitment to continually improve their environmental footprint is just one of the many reasons USA is proud to call UniTech Services Group a USA Supplier-Partner.
The former Zion airlock allows staff passage between spaces that have different pressures or gases.