Reconditioned steel drums are great containers for almost any need you have, from hazardous materials to harmless fluids. However, this doesn’t mean that they are always perfect. They come with their own maintenance needs and issues just like everything else in the world, but if you’ve got some questions about steel drums, we’ve got the answers for you. Here are a couple of our tips for taking care of your reconditioned steel drums.
Reconditioned steel drums giving you headaches? Here’s the aspirin.
Clean, clean, clean
A reconditioned steel drum, much like any other container, will keep with it a base coating of whatever materials it contained. True, some materials will leave more behind while others will leave only traces, but after multiple uses and reuses (and since reconditioned steel drums are so versatile and durable you will be reusing them a lot) that dependable container will start amassing quite a bit of gunk, especially at the bottom.
This gunk, known as ‘heel’, gets thicker and less manageable overtime, so it’s not recommended to shirk on scrubbing duties in between each use since it’ll all come back to get you eventually. Not only that, but most repurposing and recycling facilities (unless you pay for their washing services) will not accept drums with any bit of heel in them, so it’s in your best interest to keep them clean in between each use. Then again, that’s where reconditioning comes in.
When is it time to recondition and when is it time to recycle?
Everyone wants to stretch their dollar further, but sometimes you’ve just got to bite the bullet and admit to yourself that your reconditioned steel drum is just no longer safe to use. Whether that means safe for the environment or safe for its handlers or both is irrelevant, but once it is no longer meeting the standards of the UN certifications placed on it at production, it is not only unsafe to use but also illegal. All reconditioned steel drums must be reconditioned, repurposed, or recycled when the proper time comes. Now, repurposing can happen at any time you need a container that can hold different materials, but reconditioning and recycling are a bit more complicated.
If your steel drum is newer and hasn’t been subjected to many corrosive materials then you can go ahead and safely recondition it when the time comes. You need to recondition your drums when you want to start using them for different materials, since you should never cross-contaminate. A reconditioning washes the drum inside and out, inspects it for leaks, takes care of some chime straightening, replaces all non-integral gaskets, and re-marks the container. If the drum is just in need of some TLC, go in for reconditioning. However, if the drum is starting to leak and rust through then it’s time to call it a day. It’s no longer safe for use and should be recycled as soon as possible, the process of which is a bit more thorough than a normal reconditioning.
Those are just two of the problems we’ve heard steel drum users complain about, but that’s not all of them. If you have any questions, feel free to shoot them over our way and we’ll be happy to help.