Drive Over Floor Bunding

🗝 Key points: With any operation that stores liquids, spills are inevitable – and when oils, fuels and chemicals are involved, they can be outright dangerous. Not just for the people working with the liquid but also the environment. The right equipment is essential to prevent a spill from turning into an avoidable scenario. However, not all types of bunding are suitable for warehouses with a lot of vehicle traffic.

In this article, you will learn a few basics about drive-over bunding. As the product’s name suggests, it was specifically designed to solve this challenge.

Spills in warehouses are annoying but can also be outright dangerous if the leaked liquids come from the class of hazardous substances.

In the warehouse itself, dangerous spills can endanger the safety of your workers and decrease their productivity. Also, spills can seep out of your location via drains and become environmental pollutants.

Besides the fact that out-of-control spills have practical and moral implications, they can also affect your budget. Environmental legislation, tailored to protect our shared environment human health, includes a variety of fines for polluters. Besides the sanctions, being responsible for a local environmental incident can heavily harm your company’s reputation.

So, what to do to prevent all this potential chaos?

In the case of warehouse spills, prevention is better than cure. However, besides your best efforts, it is highly likely that a spill will still inevitably occur, and that is why you should welcome it prepared.

When the spill happens, containment is the next best thing to prevention.

By containing a spill at an isolated section of your warehouse, you get the opportunity to clean it up without risking too much. Spill Containment also ensures pre planned procedures can be conducted safely mitigating human risk factors…

What is floor bunding?

One of the best ways to contain leaking liquids is to have barriers in place to prevent them from escaping the initial place of the spill.

That special barrier is called floor bunding.

There are numerous warehouse floor bunding products to suit every need. Still, not all of them are suitable for spaces where there is a lot of warehouse vehicle traffic since rigid and or collapsible bunding acts as an obstacle.

However, drive over floor bunding is specially designed to both withstand and allow vehicle traffic while not losing its spill containment capacity. That makes drive over bunding ideal for warehouses, loading areas, vehicle parking, and doorways – all spots where secondary spill prevention is needed, and yet the traffic can continue operationally undisturbed.

How does drive over bunding work?

Drive over bunding is any type of bunding that allows unrestricted access and movements but still provides containment… this can be by the way of..

high-quality memory foam with a heavy-duty water proof PVC surface cover. The profile has a triangular shape, and the entire setup stays in place thanks to the aluminum bars, anchors, and adhesive used for installation.

The combination of materials and the design itself allow the bunding to flex and flatten out under the weight of the tires springing back into shape as soon as the vehicle passes. A great advantage of this system is that it minimizes the “bump” effect, which is quite important for the safe operation of forklifts. The smooth transition over the bunding prevents drums or other items from bumping intern slipping off from a forklift, further enhancing the safety of the working environment without sacrificing time.

Also, the PVC coating has a bright orange or yellow color, minimizing the trip hazard risk.

Another type of drive over bund is a rigid rubber type bund incorporated with entry and departure ramps. The Ramps ensure smooth transitions in and out of containment areas again maintaining the barrier without the bump factor and loss of time…

Where can drive-over bunding be installed?

Drive over floor bunding is ideal for light vehicle traffic areas of your facility.

That includes:

• Warehouse doorways,
• Drum and liquid storage areas
• Loading and unloading areas and docks
• Vehicle access areas

Besides warehouses, drive over floor bunding can be put to good use in:

• Workshops
• Sheds
• Loading and unloading areas in general

Drive over bunding contains liquids and can also be used on washbays

The special value of drive-over bunding comes to light in areas where oil is stored – or where oil-powered vehicles are parked.

Notoriously pesky to clean up, oil is one of the major polluters of the environment. When you allow the oil to escape into a drain, as many of these ends directly in the waterways, the effect is the same as if you poured the oil directly into a natural water body. To make things worse, just one litre of oil can contaminate 1 million litres of water!  Water soluble chemicals are also extremely difficult to separate from water making a containment area vitally important in the safe operation of liquid storage and on site environmental management…

How long does drive over bunding last?

The only drawback of any flexible floor bunding is that it won’t last as long as the rigid Rubber floor bunding. Constant compression from the vehicles and flexing of the material will eventually wear it down.

If the drive over bunding is the most practical solution for your business, but you get a lot of vehicle movement, custom ramps can also help the bunding last longer. Trade Enviro can fabricate ramps compatible with the bunding requirements – please talk to us for a complete package solution.

To Take Away

Drive over floor bunding offers an efficient and elegant solution for all warehouse areas where there is inevitable light vehicle traffic. Easy to drive over if you’re in a vehicle but hard to trip on if you’re on foot, drive over bunding offers superb spill containment without endangering the movement in the warehouse.

The experienced team of professionals at Trade Enviro will be happy to answer all your questions and help you to pick the best product for your application. Come to us with your problem, and we’ll come up with your solution – best for your business and the environment.