As you may know by now , A Perks Enterprises are affiliates with Ammonia Safety Training Institute ( ASTI ) from California , US .
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Some notes from Christopher ’ s visit to ASTI Conference October 2024 By Andrew Perks
As you may know by now , A Perks Enterprises are affiliates with Ammonia Safety Training Institute ( ASTI ) from California , US .
Christopher is back from a weeklong visit to ASTI ’ s 32-hour training programme in Monterey . It ’ s just amazing what ASTI gets through in these four days from classroom training to live ammonia exercises in the field .
ASTI are firm believers in their tried and tested ‘ Tripod ’ alliance where representatives of industry , government and public safety all cooperate to create a safer working environment and rapid response techniques to mitigate and control incidents . Parties with ammonia refrigeration plants ( industry ) engage with the emergency services ( public safety ), inviting them to perform site inspections and formulate response plans together , and finally everyone engages with the regulators ( government ) to formulate regulations to keep personnel and plants safe . With all the
All Images by A . Perks Enterprises
Christopher with Gary Smith and Don Tragethon of ASTI stakeholders . Working together , a stronger bond is formed and ultimately makes ammonia the safest hazardous chemical we utilise today .
We are intent on bringing the same principles to Southern Africa with programmes we are incorporating in our training schedules . Safe working procedures with ammonia and other hazardous material need to be the order of the day , but we have found that the local emergency services are in the dark when it comes to working with ammonia . To address this , we presented a two-day training schedule at Quayside Training Academy ( located at Crossberth Cold Store in Cape Town Harbour ) at the end of October where we engaged with Transnet , port authorities and City of Cape Town Disaster Management Services . The feedback received was tremendous with
Andrew Perks is a subject expert in ammonia refrigeration . Since undertaking his apprenticeship in Glasgow in the 1960s he has held positions of contracts engineer , project engineer , refrigeration design engineer , company director for a refrigeration contracting company and eventually owning his own contracting company and low temperature cold store . He is now involved in adding skills to the ammonia industry , is merSETA accredited and has written a variety of unit standards for SAQA that define the levels to be achieved in training in our industry .
28 www . coldlinkafrica . co . za COLD LINK AFRICA • January / February 2025