CleanSmoke meets the UN target for decent jobs
“The health and safety of our employees is our top priority”. Many employers like to say something like this. But the reality is often quite different. Again and again, employees are harmed by dangerous jobs. But times are changing. People no longer want to be exposed to uncontrollable risks – whether in their private, public or professional environment. It doesn’t matter whether they are pathogens, pollutants or hazards from fire or noise. It is not without reason that the United Nations, in its “Sustainable Development Goals“, therefore also demands decent jobs for all.
And this includes safe jobs. However, this cannot always be guaranteed in conventional smokehouses. “Smokehouses are also increasingly being viewed critically from the point of view of safety in the workplace”, says Uwe Vogel, Chairman of the CleanSmoke Coalition, a joint initiative of primary smoke product manufacturers, food producers and retailers. “With CleanSmoke, smoking companies have a good chance of showing more responsibility for their employees“.
High risks due to smoke, fire and explosion
Conventional smokehouses are still extremely dangerous places even after 9,000 years of smoking experience. The employees are directly exposed to the smoke in the plants. This cannot be completely ruled out due to the design. In addition, there is an increased fire risk for employees due to fire and explosion hazards in the smoke departments. Further environmental pollution of the facilities, such as through cleaning agents, can also indirectly become a health risk for employees. The innovative CleanSmoke smoking process, on the other hand, not only allows the production of environmentally friendly products that are harmless to health, but also makes the workplaces in smokehouses much safer. CleanSmoke is a freshly produced smoke for the smoking chamber made from primary smoke condensate, completely without fire or embers.
The smoke for the condensate is produced in a closed system (smoke generator) by pyrolysis instead of combustion or burning. It does not contain any substances hazardous to health, such as carbon monoxide and polycyclic aromatics (PAH), with which employees in conventional smoking departments may come into contact. On top of that, the risk of cancer-causing wood dust is excluded, as no chips are used.
CleanSmoke means smoking in a closed system
With CleanSmoke the primary smoke condensate is re-generated into a stable smoke with the help of compressed air. This smoke generated outside the smoking chamber is fed into the smoking chamber by means of smoke pipes and the exhaust air is fed back into the smoke generator. It is therefore a closed smoking system ⎼ without filter, afterburning or emissions. Furthermore, the recovered smoke does not contain any explosive components such as tar and ash, which are already removed from the smoke during the production of the smoke condensate. The preventive controls of the smoking systems required by the explosion protection ordinance are therefore not necessary and smoking is possible 24 hours a day without supervision. This relieves the staff of night shifts.
The non-flammable smoke condensate can be stored without any further requirements. In addition, cleaning the smoke compartment is much less risky, because the hard-to-clean fractions such as tar and ashes do not occur in the smoke condensate at all. According to calculations by the German Institute of Food Technologies (DIL), 2,600 tons of cleaning agents and the emission of about 40 tons of chemicals can be saved this way. One more important reason for a safe workplace with CleanSmoke.