Catch basins that are safe and tested

The Hes­s­ian man­u­fac­tur­er of safe­ty cab­i­nets asec­os offers opti­mum pro­tec­tion for peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment with its test­ed col­lec­tion tray sys­tems made of plas­tic or steel: they are cer­ti­fied and test­ed. The Water Resources Act (WHG) stip­u­lates in §62 that con­tain­ers in which liq­uids haz­ardous to water are stored must be pro­tect­ed against leak­age by suit­able drip pans. The approved drip pans pro­vide the appro­pri­ate reten­tion vol­ume here. They pre­vent the haz­ardous chem­i­cals from leak­ing into the work­ing or stor­age area, allow­ing the haz­ardous sub­stances to enter the waste­water unhin­dered via the drain, for example. 

Depend­ing on the require­ments, water-pol­lut­ing liq­uids are stored in tub sys­tems made of steel or plas­tic. Plas­tic drip pans (most­ly made of poly­eth­yl­ene PE) are used for the stor­age of aggres­sive chem­i­cals such as acids or alka­lis due to their high mate­r­i­al resis­tance. The PE col­lec­tion trays from asec­os have a gen­er­al build­ing author­i­ty approval, which is grant­ed by the Ger­man Insti­tute for Build­ing Tech­nol­o­gy (DIBt) on appli­ca­tion. When installed out­doors, the col­lec­tion trays must be pro­tect­ed against precipitation. 

Flam­ma­ble and/or water-pol­lut­ing liq­uids, such as min­er­al oils or paints, must be stored in catch basins made of (gal­va­nized) steel, which are man­u­fac­tured and cer­ti­fied in accor­dance with the so-called Steel Basin Direc­tive (StawaR). This spec­i­fies that steel sumps must be liq­uid-tight, cor­ro­sion-pro­tect­ed and resis­tant to the stored sub­stance. Steel catch basins are used for the stor­age of flam­ma­ble liq­uids because they remain dimen­sion­al­ly sta­ble even in the event of fire. 

Requirements for containment volume and storage 

Accord­ing to the Water Resources Act, a catch basin must be able to hold at least 10% of the total quan­ti­ty stored, or at least the vol­ume of the largest con­tain­er stored. If stor­age is per­mit­ted in water pro­tec­tion areas, it must be pos­si­ble to retain the entire stored quan­ti­ty (100%). 

When stor­ing sev­er­al liq­uids in one con­tain­ment sump, any exist­ing pro­hi­bi­tions on stor­age togeth­er must be observed in order to pre­vent a reac­tion. There­fore, not only the resis­tance of the catch basin to the sub­stances, but also the risk of an exother­mic reac­tion destroy­ing the sta­t­ics of the basin must be checked.