Category: The T&H Blog

An Unlikely Connection to Safe Drinking Water

The Meatpacking Industry Changed How We Treat Drinking Water

In 1906, Upton Sinclair published his book The Jungle, and shocked the nation by bringing to light the extreme health violations and unsanitary practices occurring in the country’s meatpacking industry. The public outcry eventually led to reforms including the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMAI) of 1906.

Chicago Union Stockyards
The Chicago Union Stockyards at the turn of the century.

The reforms, at the turn of the century, of the filthy stockyards and contaminated facilities had another unlikely connection to the country’s water treatment practices.

Late in the summer of 1908, the livestock at the Chicago’s Union Stockyards, had trouble gaining weight. It was suspected, the problem was the cattle’s drinking water. It seemed that the cattle only gained weight when given Chicago city water and not from the filtered drinking water supplied from a nearby creek.

Bubbly Creek
A man stands among the pollution and fetid carcasses of Bubbly Creek.

The creek known as Bubbly Creek was a polluted tributary of the Chicago River, foul with decaying animal parts from the upstream meatpacking facilities and ‘bubbling’ with oozing methane and hydrogen sulfide.  A nearby filtration plant cleared the water of particles and debris before it was distributed to the animal drinking troughs, but the smell of rotten eggs was overwhelming. Poaching water from City’s water supply was illegal and the Bubbly Creek was the stockyard’s only other water source.

To supply the stockyard with clean water, something had to be done.

Filtration and Disinfection

The Chicago Union Stockyards hired George A. Johnson of the New York firm of Hering & Fuller to test the quality of the Bubbly Creek’s filtered water. Although he confirmed the filtration process was satisfactory, the bacterial count was extreme due to the high content of organic matter in the water.

Johnson began testing a germicide known as “chloride of lime” or bleaching powder in the filtered water. The results were astounding. With the addition of the chlorine disinfection, filtered Bubbly Creek water became cleaner that Chicago municipal water! The Union Stockyard’s drinking water problem was solved.

Years later, Johnson would use the example of Bubbly Creek to demonstrate that filtration and disinfection, were equally important in the treatment of safe drinking water.

Chlorine Used to Treat Drinking Water

The first use of bleaching powder, or chloride of lime, as a disinfectant was temporarily introduced in 1897 to the water distribution mains in Maidstone, England to treat a typhoid epidemic. During another typhoid epidemic of 1904-05, bleaching powder was used again to disinfect the water supply in Lincoln, England. Chlorination, it was thought, could disinfect and kill certain bacteria and other waterborne diseases such as cholera, dysentery, and typhoid in water sources.

Lincoln typhoid
The Lincoln, England typhoid epidemic.

Electrolytic solutions of sea water or salt water produced the same general effect as bleaching powder and had been used for treating water, sewer and for general disinfection for the past fifteen years in England, France and China.

But the first use of bleaching powder on a large-scale use in the U.S. began in 1908 and continued into 1909 at the large Boonton Reservoir owned by the Jersey City Water Supply Company. The water was treated at a rate of 40,000,000 gallons per day, primarily as a germicide to remove bacteria and was delivered to the approximately 265,000 residents of Jersey City, several miles away.

The Jersey City Water Supply Company was the first municipality to use chlorine as a disinfectant for water in the U.S.

The Best Water in the Country

Like all cities across the country at the time, Jersey City struggled with outbreaks of typhoid fever, especially during high bacterial counts from high water and floods. Typhoid could be transmitted through unsanitary water and the death rates from the city were recorded as high as 80 per 100,000 people in the early 1900’s.

Dr. John L. Leal
Dr. John L. Leal, adviser to the Chicago Water Supply Company.

At the Boonton Reservoir, Dr. John L. Leal, an advisor to the Jersey City Water Supply Company was consulted to solve the bacteria problem in the drinking water. In the past, Leal had experimented with electrolytic solutions of salt and liquid bleach to purify water.  He had discovered that only a fraction of a part per million (ppm) of chlorine would kill disease-causing bacteria and was convinced that adding a chemical disinfectant to the water supply was the best solution.

With an impending deadline of 90 days to treat the city’s drinking water, Leal needed to improvise a quick way to distribute chlorine. Unable to find suitable electrolytic equipment that would yield enough hypochlorite or liquid bleach, he partnered with George Warren Fuller, a filtration expert at Hering & Fuller. This was very same firm only a few years earlier, George Johnson used powdered ‘chloride of lime’ to disinfectant Bubble Creek in Chicago.

Treatment Building
The bleach powder sanitation building at the Boonton Reservoir.

Fuller designed a ‘sterilization’ system that would dissolve 5 pounds of bleaching powder per 1,000,000 gallons (as a bactericide), that would cause a chemical reaction of 0.2 parts of available chlorine per 1,000,000 gallons of water.  The water was treated as it left the Boonton Reservoir and flowed to the city.

Test results from the treated water from the Boonton Reservoir showed a dramatic decline of bacteria and the local typhoid fever rate—and according to a 1928 sanitary engineering report, “is not only of a high sanitary quality, but…it compares favorably with the best in the country.”1

History in the Making

Despite the low bacteria counts and decline in water-born illnesses, chlorinated water was not readily accepted by the City officials. Years of litigation followed between the City and the Jersey City Water Supply Company. The City was convinced the chemical treatment of the Boonton Reservoir had not proven satisfactory and the water supply company should install sewer works in the watershed. It was a political tug-of-war that ultimately proved very costly for the residents and tax payers.

Boonton Resevior
Water treatment facility at the Boonton Reservoir dam.

In June of 1909, Leal, Fuller and Johnson presented to the American Water Works Association (AWWA) membership, the detailed account of the continuous chlorination treatment of drinking water at the Boonton Reservoir. Their argument for the low-cost and safe treatment of drinking water by chemical disinfection was finally widely accepted. By the 1920s, chlorination was a well-established primary means of disinfecting drinking water across the country.

Today, millions of people get their drinking water from the nation’s public-supply systems that is filtered and safely treated with chemical disinfectants. History was in the making over a 100 years ago at the Chicago Union Stockyards and with the unlikely connection of providing safe drinking water across the country.

 

 

1Report of W.C. Mallalieu, Sanitary Engineer consultant, New York City, 1928.

Dam Safety Awareness Commemorates an Epic Flood

The Johnstown Flood of 1889

It had been raining heavily for several days in late May of 1889.  People living below in the narrow Conemaugh Valley were eager for the spring rains to end. Just a month earlier, deep snow had lined the steep ravines of the Allegheny Mountains range and the ground was sodden with the heavy spring runoff. Floodwaters at the South Fork Dam high above the City of Johnstown, Pennsylvania were causing the lake level to rise, threatening to overtop the large earth embankment dam.

Before the dam breachAs the spring rains continued, life was about to change for the working-class city of 30,000 and other communities beneath the South Fork Dam.

Originally constructed in 1852, the South Fork Dam provided a source of water for a division of the Pennsylvania Canal. After a minor breach in 1862, the dam was hastily rebuilt creating Lake Conemaugh. By 1881, the dam was owned and maintained by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, who created a recreational area by the large lake, enjoyed by their elite clientele from nearby Pittsburgh.

Lake ConemaughFor the pleasure of their private members, club owners soon began modifications to the dam. Fish screens were installed across the spillway to keep the expensive game fish from escaping. The dam was lowered by a few feet so that two carriages could navigate the carriage road to the clubhouse. Relief pipes and valves that controlled the water level and spill off from the original dam were sold off for scrap, and rustic cottages were built nearby.

Ignored Warnings

Notoriously leaky, repairs to the earthen dam had been neglected for years.  As torrential rains came down, swollen waters from the lake put tremendous pressure on the poorly maintained dam. With fish screens trapping debris that kept the spillway from flowing and with no other way to control the lake level, the water kept rising.

Aftermath of floodClub officials struggled to reinforce the earthen dam, but it continued to disintegrate. When the lake’s water began to pour over the top, it was apparent that a catastrophic collapse was inevitable and imminent.  Frantic riders were sent down the valley to alert the local communities and tell them to evacuate.  Sadly, few residents heeded the alarm being so often used to the minor seasonal flooding from the Little Conemaugh river.

This time, however, the flood danger was much more serious and deadly.

On May 31, 1889 at 3:10pm, the South Fork Dam washed away, leaving a wake of destruction that killed 2,209 people and wiped the City of Johnstown off the map forever. It took only 10 minutes for the raging torrent of 20 million tons or about 4.8 billion gallons of water to rip through the communities of South Fork, Mineral Point, Woodvale, and East Conemaugh.

Along the way, the deluge accumulated everything in its path, including all sorts of debris—from city buildings, houses, and barns. Piles of boulders, trees, farm equipment, rolls of barbed wire, horse carriages, and railroad cars churned in the turmoil. Embroiled in the devastation were also animals and people—both dead and alive.

By the time the raging waters reached Johnstown at 4:07 pm, the mass of debris was a wave 45-feet-tall, nearly a half mile wide and traveling at 40 miles per hour.

Despite the shocking immensity of this tragedy, relief efforts to the ravaged communities began almost immediately. Emergency shelters for homeless residents popped up and the grim task of cleaning up began.  Volunteers and donations poured in from across the country and world, sending tons of supplies and help. One of the first to arrive was Clara Barton, who had founded the American Red Cross just a few years earlier.

aftermathIt would take months to sift through all the wreckage to find the bodies and years to fully recover from the aftermath.

Lessons Learned

It is widely thought the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club was to blame for the catastrophic failure of the South Fork Dam. Members of the club neglected to properly maintain the dam and made numerous dangerous modifications. Lowering the dam crest to only about four feet above the spillway severely impaired the ability of the structure to withhold stormwater overflow. The missing discharge pipes and relief valves prevented the reservoir from being drained for repairs and the elaborate fish screens clogged the spillway with debris. The club had also been warned by engineers that the dam was unsafe.

flood damageA hydraulic analysis published in 2016 confirmed what had long been suspected, that the changes made to the dam by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club severely reduced the ability of the dam to withstand major storms.1

The South Fork Dam was simply unable to withstand the large volume of stormwater that occurred on that fateful day on May 31, 1889.

Although the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club failed to maintain the dam, club members were never legally held responsible for the Johnstown Flood after successfully arguing that the disaster was an “act of God.”

Due to what many perceived as an injustice and outrage towards the wealthy club members, American law was ultimately challenged and “a non-negligent defendant could be held liable for damage caused by the unnatural use of land”. This legal action eventually imposed laws for the acceptance of strict liability for damages and loss.

National Dam Safety Awareness Day

On May 31st, we commemorate the catastrophic failure of the South Fork Dam by recognizing this day as National Dam Safety Awareness Day.

The Johnstown flood or the Great Flood of 1889, as it was later known as, was the single deadliest disaster in the U.S at the time. This tragedy, 129 years later, is still a harsh reminder of the critical importance of the proper maintenance and safe operation of dams.

Earth embankment dams may fail due to overtopping by flood water, erosion of the spillway discharge channel, seepage, settling, and cracking or movement of the embankment.

Routine dam evaluations and inspections, as required by law, can identify problems with dams before conditions become unsafe.  Dams embankments, gatehouses and spillways, like other structures, can deteriorate due to weather, vandalism, and animal activity.  Qualified engineering firms can perform soil borings, soil testing, stability analyses, hydrologic and hydraulic modeling for evaluating spillway sizing and downstream hazard potential, arrange for under water inspections by divers, permitting, and assistance in applying for funding for repairs. Also required, are Emergency Action Plans (EAP) that identifies potential emergency conditions and specifies preplanned actions to be followed in the case of a dam failure to minimize property damage or loss of life.

The required frequency of dam inspections will vary depending on the state, but generally are based on hazard classification, with high hazard dams requiring more frequent inspection.   Generally dam inspections should be performed every two years for high hazard dams, unless the state requires more frequent inspections.  The best time of year for inspections is in the fall, when reservoir levels are typically low, and when foliage and tree leaves are reduced, allowing improved visibility around the dam.

A wealth of information on dam safety awareness, can be found at the Association of State Dam Safety Officials website

 

 

 

1Wikipedia.com

 

The Buzz about Honeybees and Water

Signs of spring are everywhere.  Flowers are blooming, leaves are budding on trees, and sneeze-inducing pollen is abundant.

Pollinating bee
Honeybees are important pollinators.

Spring is also the start of beekeeping season.  As one of our most important pollinators for our food crops, the health and survival of honeybees is vital to our ecosystem.

Just like all living things, bees need food and water. Honeybees however, cannot simply turn on a faucet for a drink and they rarely store water. Instead, honeybees must forage for water, bringing it into their colonies as needed, as they do pollen, nectar and propolis for their survival.

How Bees Use Water

There are several uses for water in a bee colony.

For brood to develop properly, the hive requires a constant temperature of approximately 94°F and relative humidity of 50-60%. Worker bees spread gathered water droplets on the rims of honeycomb cells, on top of sealed brood, and along the hive walls. To regulate the temperature and humidity in the hive, bees will fan their wings to evaporate the water to cool the hive—similar to how we use air conditioners to cool our own homes in the summer.

Bee brood
Honeybees need water to feed developing brood.

Nurse bees, who feed the developing eggs, larvae and pupae, also have a high demand for water. The nurses attending the brood, consume copious amounts of water, pollen, and nectar so that their hypopharyngeal glands can produce royal jelly used to feed the eggs. As the larvae develops, they are fed diluted honey, nectar, and pollen.

Honeybees make honey as a means of storing food to eat. This is especially important in the winter months when bees can’t forage for nectar and rely on stored honey for food.  But before bees can easily consume honey, it first must be diluted. Bees add water to dilute honey to 50% moisture. Honey will also crystallize if the temperature drops below 50ºF.  Bees use water to dilute the crystals back into liquid before they can eat it.

Where Bees Find Water

Bees find water in a number of places, often lining up on the edges of birdbaths, mud puddles, damp rocks, branches, and drops clinging to vegetation. Foraging bees swallow the water and store it in their crops before flying home. The water is then transferred to waiting worker bees in the hive—a process known as trophallaxis—the direct transfer from one bee to another.

Drinking Bees
Bees line up on the edge of a bird bath for water.

It has been estimated that under really hot and dry temperatures, bees may bring back nearly a gallon of water each day to their hives.

As honeybees search for water, they often find water in agricultural areas—runoffs in ditches, culverts, or stormwater in waterways—that may contains insecticides, pesticides or fungicides.  Plants sprayed with pesticides or treated with systemic insecticides exude sap and form drops on the tips of stems and leaves that bees consume. These toxins, brought back to the hive can impair bee development, contaminate honey, and sadly, can completely destroy a bee colony.

Clean water supplies are essential for the operation and survival of honeybee colonies. 

Creating Water Sources for Bees

Fortunately, bees are not too picky about the type water they need. Bees tend to select the most fragrant, nutrient-rich water sources they can find. It could be the odor of mud, leaf tannin, mold, bacteria, or even chlorine from nearby swimming pools that attract bees. Minerals, salts, and other natural organic materials found in water adds important nutrients and vitamins to the bee diet.

Bees on Rocks
Provide plenty of rocks, sticks and other materials for bees to perch on while drinking water.

It is widely thought it is the scent of the source that helps bees find water. Foragers will also mark unscented sources of water with their bee pheromones to communicate to others where to find these resources.

Providing fresh sources of water is easy to do. Water can be left in shallow trays, birdbaths, flower pots, and bowls—just about anything that will hold water. Bees don’t like to get their feet wet and cannot swim. So, remember to add small stones, sticks, and other floating materials, such as cork to these containers. This will allow bees to safely stand near the water source without drowning.

And, eliminate the use of systemic and applied pesticides, insecticides and fungicides—not only for the health and welfare of bees but for our own health and the environment.  Pesticides and other chemicals applied to farmlands, gardens and lawns can make their way into ground water or surface water systems that feed drinking water supplies.

As the weather heats up and the days turn hot and lazy, the bees will be busy. Honeybees will travel incredible distances for their food and water, often flying two miles or more visiting 50 to 100 flowers each trip and returning to the hive as many as twelve times a day. A single bee colony can pollinate up to 300 million flowers a day. As a vital part of our food source, bees also pollinate 70 of the top 100 food crops we eat.

So, help our little pollinators by providing sources of fresh water.

Please Do Not Flush

Please Do Not Flush

Even though a product may be small enough to flush, does not mean it should be. Flushing items down the toilet that are not meant to be flushed, including those labeled flushable, can lead to problems in the sewer system, at the wastewater treatment facility and for the environment.

This handy two-page infographic illustrates things never to flush!

Please Do Not Flush

Download our two-page Please Do Not Flush infographic.

An Indispensable Guide to Flushing

Clogged toilets and backed up sewer systems — and the costly repairs associated with these issues — are problems that everyone wants to avoid, homeowners and DPW departments alike. And learning what is appropriate to flush is critical to keeping the pipes flowing.

While there are many obvious things not to flush down the toilet, an astonishing amount of non-flushable wipes, paper products, dental floss, and other dispensable hygiene products are flushed down toilets every day. This has contributed to cities and municipalities dealing with chronic clogged sewer systems and expensive wastewater treatment maintenance, not to mention homeowners who face the inconvenient problem of having a toilet back up in their home.

These raw sewage messes aren’t pretty and are not easy or inexpensive to fix.

Here’s the indispensable truth about what goes down the toilet.

Even though many items can be flushed down the toilet, it’s misleading to believe that everything is ‘flushable’ and safe for our sewer systems and environment. The journey is just beginning when that swirling eddy of water makes everything in the toilet bowl disappear.

All the solids flushed down the toilet that don’t dissolve eventually end up at a wastewater treatment facility. Traveling miles and miles through pipes underneath our streets and sidewalks, this raw sewage flows by gravity or with the help of pump stations towards a wastewater treatment facility. Most of this waste is taken care of, out of sight, by municipalities who work every day to maintain this process.

However, the pump stations are periodically clogged by non-disposable waste that is flushed down the toilet. Products that are designated as ‘non-flushable’ are often made with plastic fibers and do not break down in wastewater systems. Even products that are labeled as ‘flushable’, do not easily disintegrate in water like toilet paper.

Wastewater Plant
Disposable wipes at a New York wastewater treatment plant. (New York City Department of Environment Protection)

For example, popular flushable personal care wipes (for both babies and adults) are marketed as a convenient, portable, and a hygienic way to keep clean. Manufacturers claim these flushable wipes are septic-safe or safe for sewer systems. The problem is these products take much longer to break down as compared to traditional toilet paper.

And, here’s the reason why.

A well-known manufacturer of flushable wipes claims their product passes what is called a ‘slosh’ distribution test. The wipes, which are made of ‘non-woven clothlike material’, must be strong enough to handle the manufacturing process, hold up while being used, and still be weak enough to break apart after being flushed down the toilet.

The slosh test checks the potential for wipes to break down in water during agitating conditions. A box containing water and one or more wipes tips back and forth, slowly and repeatedly “sloshing” the wipes for three hours. All fibers from the test are strained from the slosh box and then poured through a 12½-millimeter sieve — consistent with industry guidelines — and rinsed for two minutes to measure the percentage of fiber material that passes through the sieve.

The problem is, unlike toilet paper that quickly disperses in circulating water, the tightly woven fabric of the wipes takes much longer to breakdown as noted in the slosh test; and while these products may not clog pipes immediately, imagine everything flushed down the toilet snagging on it, expanding, and gathering together to clog pipes and sewage pumps.

Private and municipal sewer system operators end up sifting through what’s left in the wastewater to clear these obstructions—often costing millions of dollars to maintain and repair.

Sadly, many of these disposable products are regularly flushed down the toilet. In a recent study, more than 98 percent of what was found at a wastewater treatment plant was non-flushable personal care wipes, paper towels, dental floss, diapers, tampons, condoms, cleaning wipes and other ‘trash’ not intended to be flushed.

And there are many more flushing no-nos—seemingly harmless and not so harmless items regularly flushed down the toilet.

Here is a list of things never to flush:

Baby wipes and diapers (including types labeled ‘flushable’ or ‘disposable’): Diapers can take up to 500 years to degrade in a landfill. These highly absorbent synthetic materials are slow to breakdown and can block sewer systems.

Paper towels: Just like wipes, these common household items are designed to not breakdown when wet and absorb liquids.

Cotton balls, cosmetic pads, and cotton swabs: These items tend to gather in pipe bends causing blockages.

Dental Floss:  This little string can cause havoc to plumbing and sewer systems.

Medications or Supplements: Wastewater treatment facilities are not designed to breakdown pharmaceuticals. While drugs may dilute in the waste stream, studies have shown the presence of medicines such as steroid hormones and antidepressants in wastewater effluent. The EPA1 refers to this as “Personal Care Products as Pollutants,” which also includes residues from cosmetics, agribusiness, and veterinary use.

Medical Supplies: Razors, bandages and hypodermic needles are often flushed, but quite simply, they don’t degrade. The razor blades and needles also present a danger to employees who need to remove the items that clog the system.

Rubber:  Items such as latex gloves and condoms, are made of a material that is not intended to breakdown in liquid.

Cat litter (including types labeled ‘flushable’): The absorbent properties of litter (generally clay and sand) are designed to ‘clump’ and will clog sewer systems.

Feminine Hygiene Products (sanitary napkins, tampons and applicators): Like cat litter, these products are designed to absorb liquids and swell in the process, clogging pipes, get stuck in bends and block sewer lines.

Fats, oil, and grease: Known in the wastewater industry as ‘FOG,’ are liquids that solidify when cooled, and this creates significant problems for public wastewater systems, as well as drains in your home.

Hair: Like dental floss, flushed hair can cause tangled blockages ensnaring everything that passes by.

Food products: banana peels, apple core, leftovers.  While these may degrade over time, food products simply do not disintegrate fast enough and can cause blockages throughout the system.

Trash of any kind: All this litter does not easily biodegrade.

  • Candy and other food wrappers
  • Cigarette butts
  • Rags
  • Plastic Bags

Chemicals: paint, automotive fluids, solvents, and poisons, are just terrible pollutants to flush. Just as wastewater treatment plants are not designed to screen out pharmaceuticals, these facilities are not designed to eliminate toxic chemicals.

Heavy Metals: These pollutants include, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, lithium (think batteries) and lead, etc. Please dispose of any of these toxins properly to prevent harm to the environment and the potential for serious health risks.

Flushable toilets and the wastewater facilities that treat our raw sewage are indispensable services in modern life.  It’s long time we take responsibility and think twice about what is flushed down the toilet—for the sake of our sewers systems and wastewater treatment processes, and our indispensable precious environment.

Download our Please Do Not Flush – Infographic.
DOWNLOAD

Introduce a Girl to Engineering

Inspiring Young Women

On April 23, 2018, Tata & Howard hosted an Introduce a Girl to Engineering event. Thirty-four junior girl scouts (from grades 4-5) from five local troops attended our interactive and informative overview of environmental engineering.

Women engineers from the company were eager to welcome the scouts. They know from experience how important it is to inspire young girls and get them excited about a successful career in engineering. They also know the challenges women often face in the field of engineering long known to be male-dominated.

Slowly, however, this trend is beginning to change, as more young women are earning engineering degrees.

Girls scouts groupTwenty-five years ago, when Tata & Howard was a newly established company, graduating classes from engineering schools may have been 1-2 percent women. As recently as 2016, about 20 percent of graduating engineers were female, and today, Tata & Howard stands out in the Water and Wastewater industry out as a 100% employee-owned company, led by two women co-president engineers, and 38 percent of its workforce being female engineers.

These women engineers are the future role models and inspiration for young girls. On this night, they were excited to share their experiences with the girl scouts and tell them what it is like to be an environmental engineer in the water and wastewater industry.

Their excitement was unmistakable.

We presented a colorful slideshow illustrating how clean water is delivered to our homes—starting from groundwater or surface water sources and pumped through pipes to a water treatment facility. The water treatment process was shown with a simple water filtration demonstration, screening dirty water with both coarse rocks and a coffee filter.  After going through a treatment process, it was explained that clean water is then stored in tanks and eventually ends up in the pipes that lead to our homes—and any place where we can turn on the tap and drink water.

The presentation was followed by questions, answers, and everyone’s favorite…pizza. The girls were then divided into seven teams and instructed to build a freestanding water tank using only a handful of ordinary items, such as a plastic cup (the tank), drinking straws, bubble gum, band aids, string, thumbtacks, string, paper clips, and toothpicks.  The challenge lasted 30 minutes, after which, 8 ounces of water was poured into the water tank creations to test for structural integrity and left to stand for 30 seconds without spilling any liquid.

Girl Day Water Tank Instructions

Lots of excitement and fun ensued as the water towers wobbled, leaked and finally toppled into a watery mess! Not all the tanks collapsed however. A few withstood the water test challenge and a winning team emerged—the Llamacorns—who built a tower standing tall at 11 ¼”. The Greatest Kitty Cookie team came in a close second with a 9 ½” tall structure.

Before leaving for the evening, each scout was presented with a certificate and a merit badge. Many thanks to all the Tata & Howard women volunteers who helped make Introduce a Girl to Engineering a memorable and enjoyable event for these young girls.

And hopefully…the girls also left with a greater appreciation and enthusiasm about pursuing a career in engineering.

Team Results:

Double Bubble – 8 ¼” Collapsed
The River & the Sky – 16 ½” Collapsed
Beautifully Disgusting – 6 ½” Leaked
Llamacorns – 11 ¼” Winning team!
The Greatest Kitty Challenge – 9 ½” – Second Place
Royalty – 11 ½” Collapsed
Water Dogs – 4 ¾” Leaked

The End of Plastic Pollution?

Earth Day 2018 marked its 47th anniversary on April 22 and the organization has declared this year’s theme as ‘Help end plastic pollution’.

It’s unimaginable to think how our lives would be without plastic. Plastics are so ubiquitous that we completely rely on its convenience, comfort, safety, low cost, and the multiple uses in thousands of products in our daily lives.

Flexible, resilient, lightweight, and strong, approximately a third of plastic used today is in packaging. Roughly the same amount is used in building materials such as plumbing, piping, carpeting, and vinyl. Other uses of plastic include automobiles, furniture, toys, and lifesaving medical supplies and devices. The plastics used in bottles and wrappers allow us to take food and drinks with us anywhere.

In a nutshell, plastics are indispensable and are widely used in our homes, offices, and industry every day.

But where does all this plastic eventually end up?

Bottle trash in oceanSome of it can be recycled. Quite a bit ends up in the trash and landfills. And more than you can imagine ends up loose as plastic pollution, eventually making its way into our waterways. There are millions of tons of debris floating around in the water—and most of it is plastic. It is estimated that up to 80% of marine trash and plastic actually originates on land—either swept in from the coastline or carried to rivers from the streets during heavy rain via storm drains and sewer overflows.

Therein lies the Earth Day challenge to help end plastic pollution.

Plastic, because it’s nonbiodegradable, can be around for up to 1,000 years or possibly even indefinitely, as compared to other forms of trash. Different kinds of plastic degrade at different times, but the average time for a plastic bottle to completely biodegrade is at least 450 years.

Consider the lifespan of these typical plastic products before they naturally biodegrade:

  • Plastic water bottle – 450 years
  • Disposable diapers – 500 years
  • Six pack plastic rings – 600 years
  • Styrofoam cups – 50 years
  • Plastic grocery bags – 10 to 20 years
  • Extruded polystyrene foam – over 5,000 years!

Our lives without plastic use is not going away anytime soon.  But there are many small (although important) things we can do right now to protect our waterways and help end plastic pollution. The most obvious is to try to keep as much plastic as possible out of the waste stream in the first place.

These simple behavioral changes can have an impact:

Stop buying bottled water

Glass of waterDrink from reusable containers and fill with tap water. Consider that close to 50 billion plastic bottles are tossed in the trash each year and only 23% are recycled!1   If that isn’t’ enough to convince you to stop buying ‘disposable’ water bottles, a recent study by ORB Media, did testing of 259 plastic water bottles from nine counties that revealed microplastic particles in the water from 242 of the bottles.

Recycle more

Recycling seems obvious, but we can do so much better!  According to The National Geographic, an astounding 91% of plastic is not recycled.3

recycle

The benefits of recycling is equally astounding. Not only does recycling reduce the amount of waste sent to landfills and incinerators, but it prevents (air and water) pollution, saves energy and money, creates jobs, and has a tremendous positive impact on the environment.1

To find our more on the specifics of recycling in your area, check out Earth911.org’s recycling directory.

Stop using disposable plastics

Ninety percent of disposable plastic in our daily lives are used once and then thrown out—grocery bags, food wrappers, plastic wrap, disposable cutlery, straws, coffee-cup lids, etc. In the United States alone, approximately 102.1 billion plastic bags are used every year.2   Start reducing waste by bringing your own bags to the store, silverware to the office, or travel mug to Starbucks.

Buy in bulk

Bulk produce

Single-serving yogurts, travel-size toiletries, packages of snack food—all these items of convenience not only cost more but produce more trash than purchasing larger containers. Consider buying in bulk and in larger packages, then portioning out into smaller reusable containers.

Switch from disposable diapers to cloth

The EPA estimates that 7.6 billion pounds of disposable diapers are discarded in the US each year. 1 Use cloth diapers to reduce your baby’s carbon footprint and save money.

Cook more and pack your lunch

VegatablesNot only healthier for you, cooking at home helps reduce the endless surplus of plastic packaging – take out containers, food wrappers, bottles, and eating utensils. Choose fresh fruits and veggies and bulk items with less packaging…and pack your leftovers or lunch in reusable containers and bags.

People around the world will celebrate Earth Day April 22.  However, the challenge to help end plastic pollution can’t be a one-day event.  Rather, we should strive to create a culture of environmental stewardship and make significant changes in our daily lives to reduce, recycle, and reuse our dependency on plastic.

We can start today!

 

1 www.epa.gov

2 www.thebalance

3 www.news.nationalgeographic.com

Girl Day 2018: Introduce a Girl to Engineering

National Girl Day is February 22, 2018

This is a perfect time to inspire a girl’s future by sharing your knowledge and experience that girls, science, and engineering can make a difference in this world!

Tata & Howard Engineer and former New England Patriots Cheerleader – Trish Kelliher

Tata & Howard Project Engineer Patricia Kelliher (Trish) and former New England Patriots Cheerleader talks about her experience:

“After retiring from the Patriots in 2013, I was able to speak at the Pop Warner Little Scholars banquet in Boston. About 1,500 Pop Warner football players and cheerleaders with their parents attend the banquet every year.

The Science Cheerleaders have a partnership with Pop Warner where they help their cheerleaders feel empowered to ditch stereotypes (about female scientists/engineers and about cheerleaders) and maybe even consider science or engineering as a career option.  I was able to give a 20-minute speech on my story, how I became interested in both cheerleading and engineering, and hopefully try and encourage the cheerleaders in attendance to break stereotypes.”

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Fun At Work Day 2018

In celebration of Fun at Work Day, Tata & Howard employees took a break from lunch and competed in The Marshmallow Challenge!

Table 5 in deep concentration.

Made popular by TED Talks’ Tom Wujec, The Marshmallow Challenge is simple – teams compete to build the tallest freestanding structure in 18 minutes using only 20 sticks of spaghetti, a yard of tape, a yard of string, and one marshmallow. The marshmallow needs to sit on top of the freestanding structure.

Did we mention the challenge is simple? Well…interestingly the challenge is not as simple as it seems – the marshmallow is pretty heavy! In addition, time ticks away very quickly!

While we were having some ‘Fun at Work’, The Marshmallow Challenge was also a terrific team building exercise and we did learn some valuable lessons.

Key lessons we learned from this challenge:

  1. Teamwork is key. Every team member needed to contribute. Working well together was especially effective and efficient.
  2. Testing the design intent

    Testing: Working out theories and testing materials early in the challenge helped formulate the overall design. However, taking too long in the planning impacted the construction time.

  3. Time Management. As we learned from the testing phase, time management turned out to be an equally important lesson. Teams needed to plan and manage enough time to build the structure.
  4. Innovation: Creativity and originality was really the fun part of this challenge. All teams approached this challenge differently and every structure was unique.

Here’s a blow-by-blow account of the competing teams:

At our Marlborough office five teams competed:

Table 1 planning their structure

Table 1 – Mike, Molly and Maya spent a good part of the time planning and testing. They also exercised good time management and built a very stable structure reaching 15 ½”.

Table 2 – Using all their materials, Katie, Jenna and Meghan built the tallest structure at 16 1/2”. Although not the prettiest to look at, it was very stable and even with vigorous table shaking the tower stood tall!  Winning Team!!

Table 3 – Brian, Maria, and Derek had the sad misfortune of their structure collapsing shamelessly into a ½” pile of broken spaghetti!

Table 4 – Although, James, Mary and Karen’s structure measured 10 1/2” after partially collapsing, they finished with time to spare and managed to have some materials left over!

Table 5 – Adam, Matt and Jim ambitiously engineered a very tall structure, but it sadly collapsed under its own weight.  Still, there were some measurable structural components and came in at 8” high.

At our Waterbury, CT office, two teams competed:

The Seniors at work.

The Seniors (Sal, Bill, Dave and Nan) had an early lead and constructed a fairly stable structure of modest height with about 5 minutes left.  However, their table was jarred, and the structure ended up toppling. They could not re-assemble before time ran out.

The Young professionals (Chelsea, Ryan, Kevin, Will, Natalia) used the early stages to plan the construction and had some good ideas, however, they were a little too ambitious with the final marshmallow top and their structure also collapsed.  In fact, it never really stood at all.  And, the final height of their marshmallow was below the table surface!

Young Professionals make progress.

In less than an hour, the Marshmallow Challenge is a fun way to foster innovation and teamwork. If you’re interested, the challenge rules can be seen here [Marshmallow Challenge Instructions].  Hope you find time to  have fun at work too!