b'ENVIRONMENTAL YTZ17Jack Bermingham, business unit directortanks, and then emptied the AFFF/water mix into the remaining for Oshkosh Airport Products, emphasizeswaste totes. The rinse process was repeated three times, until all that this is especially acute when usingthe totes were full. fluorine-free products, because they areOn our fifth round, we noticed there was no greasy residue generally more viscous than legacy foams,on top of the tank, Smith reports. We started discharging at which are thin like water.that point, beginning with the roof turret, then the bumper turret, Fluorine-free foams have a variety ofthen moving to the handlines and under-truck nozzles. All we had different viscosities depending on the recipeJACK BERMINGHAM coming out of the truck at that point was pure water. used by the manufacturer, he adds. Airports need to engageGFL Environmental hauled away the totes of AFFF and rinse Oshkosh Airport Products or one of our local service providers towater for disposal at a hazardous waste landfill in Canada. Two ensure a proper conversion to fluorine-free foam for their specific trucks and their specific fluorine-free foam.Thats exactly what Chief Smith did. As expected, technicians needed to modify the poppet-style proportioning system on YTZs 2009 and 2011 Striker trucks to accommodate the thicker fluorine-free foam. That process included upfront analysis by Oshkosh engineers using computational fluid dynamics to estimate the new orifice sizes. Physical testing of foam production was then performed with airport staff to validate the baseline analysis. Modifications took about two weeksper vehicle. Bermingham notes that Oshkoshs newer electronic proportioning system does not require manual adjustments for most fluorine-free foams. Cleaning DayBefore loading new fluorine-free foam into its trucks, YTZ first cleaned out the existing product. As a pioneer in making the switch, the airport had little information about the best way to proceed. There was no formal process in place when Canada issued the exemption, Smith recalls. All they said was [that] airports can use non-fluorinated products, but there was no formal direction on how to get AFFF and PFAS out of the vehicles.The airports Oshkosh Striker trucks held about 210 gallons of AFFF each. Knowing this, Smith ordered eight 264-gallon hazardous waste totes from GFL Environmental, a waste management service provider. Airport workers filled the first tote with 100% AFFF from the trucks. Next, they refilled the empty trucks with water, drove them around to mix the water throughout the AirportImprovement.comOctober 2023'