Issue link: http://psai.uberflip.com/i/1351540
ASSOCIATIONINSIGHT Portable Sanitation Association International News BIWEEKLY EDITION MARCH 17, 2021 Page 14 To keep these contracts, we agree to check our temperatures daily before we come to work. We have purchased thermometers and workers do the checks at home, before they leave for the day. And then that single piece of paper covers all the sites. We don't even have to show that piece of paper when we get to the mine site. We just have to have it in case we're stopped. As most of you probably know, we deal with MSHA which is the Mine Safety and Health Administration. MSHA has issued just guidance regarding COVID-19 safety, so any requirements so far are from the individual mine sites and the companies themselves. We've seen a definite increase in hand wash stations, or at least we did until October when the weather turned to freezing and we substituted hand sanitizer stations. As far as number of toilets and increased service, we haven't seen that. Most of the mine properties we've been servicing have required it three times a week historically, and they didn't bump that up. Once or twice a year, mines do a shutdown of either their roaster or their mills for two or three weeks to make repairs. They bring a lot of contractors in to do the work. In the past we have put out toilets in banks of 10 or 12 units with a couple of hand washing stations at different locations on the site. Now they are ordering individual toilets and hand wash stations and they scatter them throughout the site for the individual contractors. That spreads our work out a little bit more, and it takes us more time to get things done. I do see this continuing into the future. From the gold miners' perspectives, I don't think that they'll continue with it going forward because it is safer; I think they'll do it because it seems to be a lot more efficient for them. And that's what we're all about for our customers. Tim Petersen, Northwest Cascade Honey Bucket, Puyallup, Washington. We have recently seen a real slowdown in the requirement to sign in and answer the seven to ten questions on every job site. Those stands or stations still exist, but they seem to only really be manned by the larger job sites where the corporate leaders are requiring it. The other thing we've seen is that the customers are paying very close attention to the way things are cleaned. If you pump and service a portable restroom, none of that equipment should get anywhere near a sink. And customers are certainly very watchful if you have a driver that attempts to do that once in a while. The other thing we've noticed is stricter requirements from the various inspectors on worksites. Some of these folks are actually requiring the sink water to get over 100 degrees in temperature, and that's a hard thing to accomplish. But we're finding that things like that seem to be inspector- specific, not across the board. Many times, requirements are written in their rules, but the rules are not being enforced across the board. We are also seeing an increase in subcontractors ordering their own units. That way they have control of how they're cleaned and who cleans them, rather than just agreeing with what the general contractor rents. And if what they had on site was enough prior to COVID, we notice service levels seem to be back to that "normal." We had our two months where everyone wanted service every day or more, but now it's back to two or three times a week. We also field a lot of customer questions about what we're doing to sanitize the equipment. Evolving Expectations on Worksites, Part 1…continued from page 2 Continued on page 15 Tim Peterson Joe Payne