Calibration & specialty gas mixtures are stored in two main cylinder types.
- Low pressure cylinders known as disposable or non-refillable cylinders (NRC)
- High pressure / large volume refillable cylinders.
Non-refillable cylinders (NRC) are the most widely used cylinder for occupational health & safety applications to calibrate and/or bump test both portable and fixed gas detection instruments.
For many years manufacturers called NRC’s “disposable” cans which often caused users to send them to landfill rather than recycling the material once the cylinder was empty.
With the ongoing push for environmental solutions in all industries, greater effort has been placed in recycling NRC’s (low volume cylinders) over the past decade.
Recycling is certainly a positive step but, when compared to reusing and refilling the cylinder, recycling still creates a bigger hydrocarbon footprint on our environment.
High pressure cylinders have always been designed to be refilled. This reduces the frequency of cylinders going to a recycling plant (or into the garbage) as they can be used over and over again.
To benefit the environment a solution needed to be developed for low pressure “disposable” cylinders (NRCs) similar to their high pressure counterparts.
CAC GAS has the solution!
CAC GAS’ aluminium low pressure cylinders (34, 65 and 112 litre) used for corrosive gas mixtures can now be refilled! These cylinders are manufactured to the same quality standards as high pressure cylinders to allow the cylinders to be refilled safely.
This is a huge change for NRC/disposable cylinders as we can now refill them rather than sending each cylinder to be recycled after one complete use.
The aluminium cylinders used by CAC GAS can be refilled. Most other manufacturers are still using cylinders which must be recycled after one use.
To further benefit the environment, CAC GAS has developed a partner program for collection of the cylinders throughout Australia. This program provides an easy method for customers to send or drop off their empty cylinders to a local partner. All 34, 65 and 112 litre cylinders are returned to CAC GAS so they can be put back into the manufacturing processing.
