Cleanup of hazardous materials requires enormous amount of labor intensive material handling. Handling and disposal of toxic or radioactive material requires a high degree of compartmentalization. Dismantling or upgrading a facility that produces or processes such material necessitates the highest degree of care. Because the difficulty and high cost of handling and storing hazardous material, it is imperative that hazardous material and related fixtures do not contact non-hazardous materials and fixtures, thus minimizing the amount of hazardous material requiring disposal. The removal of fixtures dedicated to handling hazardous material requires the construction of visquine walls to protect nearby non-hazardous fixtures from contamination. Similar protection efforts entail wrapping or otherwise surrounding the non-hazardous fixtures with plastic sheeting, and sealing the plastic sheeting with duct tape. Without such protective measures, radioactive or toxic material could permeate drainage or sewage facilities, or otherwise contaminate water supplies shared with a neighboring geographical area.
In addition to protecting the non-hazardous material from the hazardous material, cleanup also requires hazardous material to be contained before it is removed. As an example, plumbing used to transport toxic or radioactive liquid must be placed in a sealed container, just as the transported liquid must be sealed. While hazardous liquid may be easily placed in sealed drums, vast lengths of pipe require a different solution. Plastic sheeting is used again, and the plumbing is wrapped or otherwise surrounded and sealed with duct tape. In most cleanup applications requiring plastic sheeting, the processes of cutting, applying and sealing the plastic sheeting are very time consuming and require at least two people, thus incurring high labor costs.
The science of material handling has long included plastic bags with pressure closable fastenings. Conventional pressure closable bags comprise a rectangular sheet of plastic folded in half, bonded on one side to form a side seam, and bonded across the bottom edge to form a cross seam. The remaining open end of the bag is sealed by pressure closable fasteners which are extruded plastic fastening strips integrated along the fourth edge that interlock when brought into contact with each other under pressure. Pressure closable fasteners are useful as they provide a quick, convenient method of forming a waterproof and airtight seal. The art of making reclosable plastic bags incorporating extruded plastic profile fasteners has developed over several decades, with many useful improvements being made. Color coding, or providing two opposing extruded plastic profile fasteners of different colors that produce a third color when sealed, provides a clear indication of whether the bag is sealed, or whether the extruded plastic fasteners are not interlocked.
While the seal of the pressure closable plastic bag would be very useful if it could be employed in hazardous waste cleanup as described above, plastic bags of the prior art are not convenient to such an application. Existing pressure closable plastic bags cannot be used to protect or contain oblong articles, such as tubes, pipes, or plumbing fixtures, because they contain only one opening and generally enclose only limited volume. In order to protect or contain oblong articles, the pressure closable seal must be incorporated into a cylindrical enclosure having open ends. There is a pressing need for plastic sheeting that incorporates the extruded plastic profile fasteners on opposite ends of a rectangular sheet to provide a quick and convenient facility for containing or shielding oblong or odd-sized objects in a sealed environment.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds