Sewage Treatment Facilities in San Francisco

Sewage Treatment Facilities in San Francisco

There are 3 sewage treatment facilities in San Francisco, which includes southeast treatment plant, Oceanside treatment plant and north point wet weather facility. Southeast treatment plant, Oceanside treatment plant operate 24 hours every, while the north point wet weather facility only work on rainstorm season. Southeast treatment plant is the largest wastewater facility, located at Bayview Hunter Point, and treats almost 80% of city’s flow. It treats about 57 million gallons of wastewater per day, and it could handle up to 250 million gallons of wastewater during rainstorm season. In addition, the water treatment plant takes care of sludge and transforms it into bio-solids. Every year, the sewage treatment facilities produce 80000 wet tons of bio-solids, which can apply as fertilizer to improve and maintain productive soils and stimulate plant growth.

MSDS

MSDS

I have obtained a Material Safety Data Sheet from Food and Nutrition Department at CPMC St. Luke’s Campus, and I will review one of their cleaning agents from the MSDS.

Product name: OASIS 255SF

Product/ingredient name: d-glucopyranose, oligomeric, decyl octyl glycosides

Recommended use: Class Cleaner
Chemical family: Mixture

Health Risks: This product is harmful to aquatic life and may cause serious eye damage and eye irritation. However, there is no known significant effect or critical hazards for skin contact, inhalation, and ingestion. In the product, there is no known carcinogen found. To protect the eyes, safety glasses and gloves are recommended. Also, good general ventilation should be sufficient to control work exposure to airborne contaminants. When people use this product in a workplace, people should follow the instructions on the label.

Toxnet: in this cleaning product, it also contains ammonium hydroxide. After I researched this chemical compound in the Toxnet, I found some discrepancies between what were reported in MSDS and Toxnet. Ammonium hydroxide is severe skin irritants, may cause permanent eye damage. Moreover, in Toxnet, it also reported ammonium hydroxide may also cause burns of the oral cavity and pharynx, oesophagal or gastric perforation, pulmonary oedema. For chronic effects, ammonium hydroxide can cause urticarial to people.

MSDS Tools: I think this is an adequate tool for helping kitchen workers understand proper techniques to reduce their risk of exposure to harmful cleaning chemicals. If MSDS can provide other language options for workers, it will help workers to understand more thoroughly to the content and minimize chemical exposure to the workers.