Practice Your Spill Training

How many times have you conducted spill training with words and a PowerPoint? Have you ever wondered how you can do practical spill training and not use up expensive spill kit components?

Well, I have an idea to share which I recently used at a client’s training course.

Use a coffee can painted to look like a 55 gal drum. Cut a gouge into the side near the bottom to create the leak point then fill a gallon zip bag with a mixture of 1 cup flour to 3 parts water. A little food coloring is a nice addition and then zip the bag and massage the mixture into something that looks like glue.

When you’re ready for your “spill exercise” break the bag and allow it to ooze out the can. I used a plastic table cloth to protect the conference room table and created a baby spill kit out of industrial paper towels rolled up to look like “pigs” as well as baggies of kitty litter for “Oil Dri”.

 

I had the students assign a team leader who was the incident commander and directed the team on how to put on their PPE and clean up the spill.

It was a great opportunity to discuss what we’d do differently based on where the “leaky drum” was located (such as near a door or storm drain).