Michael O’Connor, founder of the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center, saved countless lives in memory of his wife ..read more

I’ve become quite familiar with the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) over the years. It started with a process safety webinar Chemical Processing offered that featured subject matter expert Trish Kerin, the director of the IChemE Safety Centre, which then led to a podcast that I host with her -- Process Safety With Trish & Traci. The IChemE’s goal since its inception 100 years ago is to advance chemical engineering’s contribution for the benefit of society. They have offices in the UK and Australia (Trish is based in Victoria, Australia), but their reach is global and the message ..read more

When I was a kid my family often went camping. My brother and I were tasked with finding big rocks from a nearby river to build a fire pit. We’d keep a fire going all weekend and come Monday morning, we would pour water on the fire to ensure it was completely extinguished. One weekend our fire-safety ritual unearthed great mystery. Once the water hit one of the big, nearly perfectly round rocks, it split in two revealing a beautiful glittery-rose interior. My brother and I were certain it was a space rock and we each took a half; we watched a lot of “Lost In Space” reruns back then so what we ..read more

My father-in-law’s past is peppered with rough-and-tumble experiences. He was a Green Beret in the U.S. Army and has held gruff occupations since the day he started working. He retired not too long ago as a long-distance truck driver but his true passion and profession was being a blacksmith and a farrier, which he came to out of necessity at the age of 14 when the family couldn’t afford to buy or put shoes on their horse. When I stumbled upon a blacksmithing video from the folks over at American Chemical Society, I obviously had to figure out where the connection was between my world of Chemi ..read more

Hold on to your martini glasses -- there’s a carbon negative vodka on the market. I’m wondering which aspect of The Guardian article caused my editor to think of me: the good news for the environment or the booze? Likely it was the booze. I don’t have many vices but a good dirty martini is one of them. According to The Guardian, “A company in New York City has created what it calls the ‘world’s most sustainable spirit by making a vodka out of carbon dioxide that has been captured from the air. The 40% proof drink, appropriately called Air vodka, removes a pound of CO2 from the atmosphere for e ..read more

Every day we are getting closer to the Jetsons world I envisioned as a kid. Indeed, robots now can delicately sort through trash to pick out soft plastics like cling wrap and plastic bags. This sorting work is currently done by humans but it's not an efficient process and the soft plastics that slip through the sorters grasp get all twisted up and cause lines to shut down. By putting whom I envision as a relative of the Jetsons’ maid, Rosie, on the task, the amount of soft plastics going to the landfill will be reduced significantly, according to researchers from the Centre for Internet of Thi ..read more

Over the past year I’ve learned way more than I thought I would about check valves. It started when we had a torrential downpour in May 2020 and our house flooded. . . from the downstairs toilet. . . and all the neighborhood “business” landed in our family room. In the 70s, when our house was built, they didn’t put in check valves for the sanitary sewers and for a long time it was frowned upon to do so for reasons unknown to me. Needless to say, a video of the offensive waters in my house convinced city planners that it was necessary for us to install one to ensure we never had to deal with th ..read more

Blowing stuff up in the name of safety and research always grabs my attention. Earlier in my career I visited Rhode Island-based FM Global, an insurance company that specializes in loss prevention services, to see how the research campus re-creates the fury of Mother Nature via such devices of destruction as debris cannons, hail guns and the mother of all wind machines that draws its power from a Ford V-10 engine. The campus also hosts several fire technology labs that have movable ceilings to simulate various warehouse situations. A few years later, just after I joined Chemical Processing, I ..read more

Recycling is a hot topic in Cleveland, Ohio, these days. It seems that the city has been duping diligent dividers of plastics and simply dumping bins designated as recyclables into the general trash pit with all garbage. You can read about the controversy here.  In addition to the shady practices in the city, suburbs of Cleveland also have a tough time getting folks to properly recycle. One rogue piece of non-recyclable material could jeopardize the entire bin and send it to the dump. My husband and I battle weekly on what is considered appropriate. He contends anything with the recycle s ..read more

New year, new set of goals. First one on the list for me is to get to the gym more. I’m fortunate that my facility is very proactive in adhering to COVID guidelines; all equipment is spread out, everything is cleaned every two hours in addition to spot-cleaning after each machine is used, we are quizzed about exposure each time we enter the facility and our temperature is taken. We also have to wear a mask at all times unless we are using the pool. Additionally, there are hand-sanitizer stations everywhere. I feel very safe. Well, I did feel safe until I came across recent research that says m ..read more