Pittsburgh International Airport
Airports are, by nature, a whirlwind of activity. People coming and going, eating and running, milling about with nothing to do. To accommodate these wayward travelers, airport authorities are turning more and more to commercial & retail means to keep people occupied. One of the most simple ways of occupying travelers is to provide a wide assortment of restaurants.
The Pittsburgh (PA) International Airport sets a good example for this trend. A domestic and international hub for a leading US air carrier, the airport handles over 20.5 million passengers a year, making it the 15th busiest airport in the nation in terms of operations. It also features numerous shops, boutiques, and other retail outlets to keep travelers busy.
Feeding these 20.5 million passengers are no fewer than 37 restaurants dotting the wings of the airport terminal. With so many restaurants in a relatively compact space, problems associated with effluent grease & oils are inevitable.
"We started experiencing grease-related problems almost one year after the opening day in 1992," states Ron Chalovich, the plumbing & piping supervisor for the Alleghany County Airport Authority. Ron and his crew oversee all the plumbing that services the almost 15,000 acres of the airport. His men also were responsible for servicing the grease traps handling the effluent for each restaurant. "Over the years, we had to replace lengths of pipe, clean up spills and jet out lines & manholes. These problems were a direct result of grease in the lines." As these problems intensified, Ron actively sought a solution.
"For a while, we tried dumping bacteria down the drain and into the grease traps. This had little if no effect. Around 1999, I ran across an advertisement in an industry magazine about automatic traps. I contacted the factory, and we installed one into the kitchen of one of our restaurants.” This took place in early 2000. The results were tremendous. Since then, eight more units have been installed, with more in the future.
I like the Big Dippers because they clean themselves out. If there is a passive trap in a restaurant, people either don't want to clean it out or they don't know that they have to clean them out. It used to tie up two of my plumbers at least an hour to clean out each trap every few weeks. With the Big Dipper, the restaurants now can take care of the traps because each unit takes care of itself. All the restaurants have to do is to take the collected grease down to a central area, where the rendering company takes it away. This has enabled my crew to focus on the more important things at the airport."
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