I see alot of pictures of wrecks where departments deploy a variety of products to deal with small spills of oil, antifreeze, fuel, etc. released during a motor vehicle crash. What have you found to work well at absorption, neutralizing or containing and why?
In your scearious, we use nothing. Wrecker drivers do the clan up.
Speedy Dri, Drizall, cat litter. We get a supply of it from local wreckers. Most times, we put it down, help them clean most of it up, they take it away. Sometimes, due to long delays waiting for wreckers, we'll have most of it cleaned up and waiting for their arrival.
Sawdust from the local cabinet shops.
Heavy rescue is set-up with two large bins (150 lbs each) that have a 2" plastic hose and a "blast gate" type slide. Hose extends to 15" from ground. Drivers side bin has anti-skid limestone sand, and the officers side has oil dry (diatomaceous earth). Pull the gate and dump what you need on the ground or into a 5 gal bucket. Spread with a shovel or broom.
kitty litter.. haha cheaper than "oil-dry" and just as effective.
All 3 FDs I am on use oil dry.
When I was a civilian CFR-FF for the WiAng we used a product called Sphag Sorb made from sphagnum moss. It looked kind of like coffee grounds when you dumped it out of the bag but it was super absorbent. In fact we had about a 20 gallon gasoline spill where we dumped 2 bags of Sphag Sorb on it and not only did it clean up there wasn't even a stain on the cement.
I like newpig lite dry. It is a paper based absorbant so much lighter than kitty litter and it soaks up oil and fluids well.
We've had a new product on the market in the area called zeocan. It's a company that has access to a formation of Zeolites (A complex naturally forming soft rock similar to kitty litter) It's environmentally frienly according to the MSDS sheet, best part is that the material doesn't prefer water over oils, so it will soak fuels, oils and hydrocarbons before H2O. I am not sure about it but from my understanding the spent material decomposes naturally... Your Judgement call
We use Pig Dri. Every rig keeps 5-10 gallons of it. If they need more for an incident, HazMat can bring tons of it. We can always call for a sand truck or a truck of peat moss.
We use "Oil-Dry" for the most part. Occasionally Cat Liter when need be. We also carry a few PIG Brand Diverter Socks and a box of they're Absorbent Mats.
Our Wreckers Take forever to get here. So we throw down our own spill clean up and containment setups. Also carry a large 350 gallon "Storage" tank with a transfer pump on the back of our "Hazmat" rig. we seem to have alot of Semi wrecks (I-70 corridor) and 2 250 gallon saddle tanks make a big mess if not transferred and contained as quick as possible.