The toughest storage job around: nuclear waste!

The toughest storage job around: nuclear waste!

People put things into storage for many reasons, usually it’s things we might want to see again or else why are we keeping it? Nuclear waste is not one of those things. It’s something we hope to never see again when we lock it away. For this reason very complicated steps are involved in the long term storage of such wastes. In most instances the intention is that these items will remain safely locked away for thousands of years.

On a small scale getting rid of something forever can be fairly simple. Just drop it into an icy crevice or a trench deep in the ocean. Many a treasure has been lost buried in unmarked holes or sealed deep in caves long forgotten and never to be seen again. Unfortunately for scientists the dangers presented simply by the presence of nuclear waste in open air or water or even buried securely far from human habitation are too great to be handled without the utmost caution. Nuclear waste presents an unprecedented scientific dilemma, since this radioactive material can remain dangerous long, long into the future, beyond perhaps even this era into a time when records may have been lost and warnings and locations of dangerous materials lost to the ravages of time.

The first approach scientists take in ensuring the highest security in radioactive waste storage is the careful design of incredibly long-lasting storage containers that sealed the material against even the most destructive of accidents. These storage containers or “casks” are made from the most sturdy of metals. Externally they are designed to withstand the most brutal punishment and tested to this effect. Even the earliest and most crude designs for containers built for the storage and transport of radioactive materials proved hardy enough to withstand the impact of a speeding diesel locomotive and still remain tightly sealed. This was 20 years ago and the technology has only improved.

Modern casks have multiple layers of protection for the dangerous material kept inside. Usually multiple layers of high-impact steel are separated by layers of concrete inches thick. The construction of the cask is usually so highly protective of its dangerous contents that be container itself is 5 to 10 times larger than the innermost storage compartment.

Safety is augmented by the suspension of radioactive material in glass. Wastes are mixed with molten glass before being form poured into the innermost storage container of the multi ton cask. This ensures that even if the cask itself cracked open in the most unlikely circumstances the dangerous radioactive material would still be stored in a solid form, unable to flow out of the broken cask.

Unfortunately public opinion is currently extremely negative on the issue of transporting radioactive material across borders for long-term secure storage. As a result the expense of casking radioactive waste is often not undertaken as temporary storage while less secure requires less space and expense. People do not realize in large numbers how much safer the transportation of radioactive waste is then to simply leave it in temporary storage at the location where it is generated. Eventually however the need to store permanently and therefore transport safely radioactive waste material will become undeniable – fortunately the tools to do so are readily at hand.

Technology Advances in Modern Self Storage

Technology Advances in Modern Self Storage

Most people have a pretty strong preconceived notion of what self storage options are available. However these days there are many more options then ever before, and the concept of storage has changed radically from even a decade ago. Advances in technology have allowed self storage companies to become diverse and specialised. Options for storage that were unimaginable just a few years ago are now commonplace. Allowing consumers to store items they might not have considered appropriate for storage previously.

Below we will list a few of the modern advances in the self storage industry and how they are helping consumers think of storage in a whole new way.

Climate control

Climate control technology has advanced to the point where it is not only ecologically efficient but affordable for almost every self storage customer. Previous concepts of the storage unit which is blazing hot in the summer and bitterly cold in the winter are woefully out of date. With new electronic advancements in climate control your self storage unit can be kept not only at a constant temperature but also at a controlled level of humidity. This allows storage of delicate items which you might have never considered previously. And don’t have qualms about the impact on the environment, new technology has made self storage climate control even more efficient Then environmental systems used in homes and office buildings.

Security innovations

Advances in self storage security have accrued rapidly in the past few years. Long gone are the days of relying on sturdy chain and hefty padlock alone to guarantee the security of your storage unit. Modern storage facilities utilise numerous technically advanced security systems to guarantee the safety of their customers belongings. Video surveillance has always been a core component of storage site security but advances in technology have led to more widespread monitoring, while decreases in the expense of technology allows for a greater Investment in cameras and motion detection systems. While previously only a few key areas may have been monitored by video now it is affordable for almost every section of the facility to be kept under video surveillance.

While the keyless, keypad entry system as long than a standard of self storage modern systems allow for biometric identification, and or wireless access. Many sites also employ a two-tier verification system. Tying in a cell phone notification step before granting access with matching key card. Similar systems are in place for secure access to individual units, in addition to access to the overall facility.Such radical advances in security allow customers to store expensive and important items with a sense of total security.

Storage Automation

While it seems like something out of science-fiction a prevailing trend in modern self storage is a move toward robotic automation. Many modern storage facilities now rely on automated mechanical systems to retrieve and store storage containers of almost any size. From a car down to a shoebox many facilities now offer a service where a robot takes your items to be stored from a receiving area and places it gently and automatically in a secure warehouse far from human hands. The benefit to the customer – apart from the obvious security advantages – is being able to organise and deliver items to be stored to a single central location. Instead of having to wind your way through a maze of storage units and warehouse lockers, each customer now only has to visit one area and their storage unit is brought to them.

Self storage facilities as an inventory solution for small business.

Self storage facilities as an inventory solution for small business.

As every small business owner names one of the largest and most unavoidable business expenses is property overhead. The rent on your basic business is an expense that cannot be avoided. This is why so many businesses go to pains to find the perfect location that is not only convenient for their customers but also allows them to perform their business seamlessly. Unfortunately these two qualities can sometimes be hard to reconcile. Often businesses will find that a location that is convenient for customers is in an area where property of significant size is too expensive. On the other hand areas with large properties available to business can often be far from centers of consumer interest.

This can be a vexing conundrum for a small business owner. You pay more to a larger property near to your customers or instead choose a more affordable property that has all the facilities your business requires yet will be far from the consumer center and runs the risk of limiting your customer base?

What many business owners fail to consider is that it is possible to downsize your property requirements without risking the quality of business you perform. Consumer self storage facilities can be an excellent resource for small businesses. Instead of investing in a larger property that allows you to keep all your inventory close at hand, keeping that inventory which is not an immediate need in a self storage unit can be vastly cheaper than the difference in rent for a larger commercial property.

Every city, large or small, as a variety of self storage businesses from which. to choose. This helps the business owner buying and off-site storage facility that is close by and therefore convenient to his or her business. Many small business owners use self storage not only for excess inventory what to keep seasonal items on hand allowing them to make initial purchases that are larger and more cost-effective.

Small business owners realize that having more inventory on hand (or nearby, in this case) means less chance of disappointing customers with out of stock items. Being able to answer a customer’s needs at any time translates to more sales and satisfied, long term customers. Why wait for items from the supplier that may take weeks to arrive, when a 15 minute drive your nearby self storage facility can fulfill the need?

The benefits provided by storing excess inventory at a self storage facility exceed just be simple necessity of investing in a larger commercial space. Utility costs are also reduced. Many self storage facilities offer a variety of climate control storage units which are accessible 24 hours a day. This allows you to keep your excess inventory in pristine condition without having to pay extra for climate control, refrigeration and electricity at your main commercial site.

Now that you know this, as a small business owner consider what items in your commercial space can be moved to a nearby, off-site storage facility without interrupting your. daily flow of business. With these items securely stored almost commercial space you really need for your business? It might now be possible to locate your business in a new, more economically feasible location more convenient to your customers.

The Safe and Secure Way to Store Documents

The Safe and Secure Way to Store Documents

We always hear about storing boxes of big and small items when we move and it is always easier to manage and handle when these are more ‘tangible’ and can be felt by the sense of touch.

However, for offices especially those small offices that handle a lot of paper work, these offices end up with a too many hard copy  documents and a diminishing office space. Even though the office manager would like to avoid handling too many documents, if it is essential to the day to day operations of the business and it is part of doing business after all, then the manager can’t do it away. Then how to manage paper work that needs to be kept for a certain period of time or what we call a lifespan and at the same time to have enough office space? How will the office manager able to save some space left without being drowned from office space?

Nowadays, apart from big items storage facilities, there is a growing number of smaller document storage companies who are serving a niche market requiring document storage or paper work. There are variations to the services being offered but basically, these are a few of the services it offers:

1)    Free boxes and delivery of the boxes right at your doorstep

There are some companies who provide and deliver the boxes you need for free at your doorstep while there are some companies who would first require a consumable deposit for a certain number of boxes and once you engage the company for storage, they will deduct the deposit from the total bill.

2)    Free pick up and delivery of packed boxes

Not all companies would provide free delivery of boxes back to you but most of the time this is already incorporated in the total quotation. If you wish to deliver and pick up by yourself, then it is best to have the associated costs during the quotation stage.

3)    Provision of industrial grade, durable mobile pods

Since what you are storing with them are important documents, it is right to get industrial grade mobile pods to ensure the safety and security of your documents. These mobile pods would usually keep moisture out but sometimes not. And if the latter is the case, check whether the storage facility where these pods are stored have humidity and temperature control.

4)    Storage of durable pods in highly secured warehouses

Warehouses where these mobile pods should be secured and sometimes these are temperature and humidity controlled. It is best to check this with your service provider to ensure safety and also how accessible your documents are to you.

5)    No minimum number of days required to commit. Pay only of what you use.

These are some service providers who would provide discount for longer periods of time but most of the time, the transaction is just only pay as you use.

6)    Free virtual storage space for documents that you need to be scanned and retrieved anytime you want

Although the documents are very important to you to retrieve at the end of the contract or as and when you would like to retrieve these, but there are some documents that you would like to use a point of reference only without having to get the actual hard copy. Such service is provided when you need a cloud storage for such documents that you would like to access anytime.

7)    Hard drive that contains data of scanned documents provided for free

Apart from cloud storage, some companies would also provide you with a free hard drive of your stored scanned documents that you can carry anywhere

8)    Insurance

This is very important since under any fortuitous events, you can claim for any damages especially if your documents are delicate and sensitive in nature.

As you can see there are many element5s to keep in mind if you want to be sure that the storage of your documents is indeed safe and secure.

Large corporations are seeing the benefit of temporary self storage.

Large corporations are seeing the benefit of temporary self storage.

When people think about temporary self storage there is always an understandable tendency to think the service is mainly used by families and individuals for the storage of household items. In fact modern trends in storage point to a growing utilization of self storage facilities by businesses and corporations both large and small.

Storage companies are beginning to see an appreciation by larger corporations of the many high quality benefits self storage provides. Corporations around the world have begun to form contractual agreements with a variety of self storage companies for both large and small spaces as well as long and short-term storage periods.

Unlike individual consumers and corporations may have interests in multiple cities around the globe by forming contractual partnerships with large self storage networks or even individual self storage facilities makes for a good long-term economic sense. By being able to guarantee the economic reliability of on-time payments or in many cases upfront fulfillment of contractual obligations corporations and take advantage of special offers and discounts offered by self storage facilities.

With the flexibility of contracted self storage a corporation can take advantage of storage options in a variety of locations either near or far to their business interests. Some corporations use contracted self storage solely for the benefit of their employees. A globe spanning company may be required to relocate employees across the country or even across the world. In order to spare their employees the convenience of having to arrange their own storage and moving expenses corporations frequently they in-house contracts with storage and moving companies. Employees of modern corporations at home to expect some benefits to be included with employment that involves frequent travel.

Being able to provide an employee who travels to many different locations frequently the ability to store not only personal items, but business materials as well will ultimately save the company money in innumerable ways. It not only saves time for the employee, therefore translating into savings expense for the company it also reduces the requirement to ship materials frequently to different locations. These storage facility can also serve a multi-use purpose as it is under contractual agreement to the Corporation, not the individual employee. This means that while the self storage unit may continue to be of use to the individual traveling employee, employees who work local to this self storage facility and also utilize the space.

Businesses around the world have long recognized the many advantages of temporary self storage. The secure, climate controlled location that is off site for your business means less commercial real estate required. Excess inventory, temporary marketing materials, or not in use seasonal items do not need to be stored in a company maintained storage facility when a long-term contractual rental of temporary self storage insert the same purpose at a much reduced expense. These same benefits can be enjoyed by a large corporation. Even a corporation that does not have an office in the area near the self storage facility. If employees frequently travel to certain locations where a corporation does not have a permanent operating facility temporary self storage can serve as a holding facility for corporate materials and inventory that only needs to be accessed infrequently. This allows employees to travel with less expense, not having to pay extra for freight shipment on commercial air travel.

Subtropolis offers more storage space than you could ever need!

Subtropolis offers more storage space than you could ever need!

Hundreds of feet below suburban Kansas City lies “the world’s largest underground business storage facility” or as it’s more commonly known, Subtropolis. A former limestone mine that has been excavated to open an underground space of 55,000,000 ft.² Subtropolis has been on offer for storage and business use since the 1940s. The weatherproof storage facility has a constant climate of dry and temperate weather perfect for long-term storage of everything from green coffee beans (the only facility of its kind in the United States) to fleets of vehicles as large as tractor-trailers and double-decker buses. Clients include the US Postal Service which stores it’s collection of millions of stamps and major film studios, who use the climate controlled storage to preserve classic films in their original format.

With over 1000 acres of storage space Subtropolis is far from full. Huge pillars of limestone support the many tons of rock that serve as the facilities roof. By constructing walls between pillars rooms are formed for individual clients. Some clients have installed underground factories and production lines for which the facility provides uninterruptible power service. It is hard to fathom the two sides of this massive storage facility. It only comes into perspective when you consider that the site has 2 miles of railroad tracks serving it and 6 miles of underground roadways. Despite having dozens of clients taking up hundreds of acres of space Subtropolis still has massive areas yet to be developed.

And of course you can’t beat an underground vault for storage security. With 24 hour video surveillance and walls hundreds of feet thick it is the perfect place to squirrel away your most precious possessions. The entire facility is also protected by a state of the art fire suppression systems and serviced by a 24 hour maintenance crew. While the company is reluctant to give any details you can rest assured that many of these hard to access and well protected secure storage spaces are used for holding valuable items in a place offering the greatest peace of mind.

It’s not just storage safety that attracts customers, but it is the location nearly in the center of the contiguous United States that appeals to many businesses looking to Keep large amounts of inventory close at hand. Proximity to major freeways and an international airport make this location a perfect choice for even international corporations with large storage needs.

Perhaps the most appealing aspect of keeping inventory or running a business out of Subtropolis is the low level of environmental impact it creates. Not only do businesses not need to create extra ways for the production of construction materials required for a normal business storage facility, the constant temperature and humidity means no large overhead costs for heating and cooling or humidity control. Workers employed by businesses in Subtropolis seem to greatly appreciate this predictability in internal weather. By being able to drive from home straight into the business facility workers never have to worry about getting wet in the rain or freezing In the dead of winter on that long walk from the car to the office.

Document storage – What To Do First After You’ve Secured Your Service Provider?

Document storage – What To Do First After You’ve Secured Your Service Provider?

Once you have secured your service provider for your document storage, it is time to sit back and look from an overall perspective on what are the documents that you need to store. This is no different from sorting and setting aside the important ones to keep while throwing away the not-so-important documents. But where do you begin then?

1)    Make a list of criteria of how you select the documents to keep. Have some benchmarks.

If you are able to find a pattern in your operations on the lifespan of a document, say 6-10 months, then go thru your pile which ones that you think will not be required once these reach on the 10th month of safekeeping.

Another criteria that you can set is that if the document is no longer valid. If it is not valid anymore, then keep only the cover page where it proves that it is no longer valid and throw the rest of the pages to thrash.

2)    Sort thru your pile of paperwork

Once you have decided the basis of keeping important documents, then it’s about time to sort it into two – to keep and not to keep. This is no different from sorting your items at home.

3)    Shred documents that you will no longer use but contains very sensitive information

Most of the time these documents contain sensitive information like customer data or financial information. Thus, it is just right to have a shredder on hand and have these torn to several pieces.

4)    Make some identifiers or bookmarking to locate your files easily

Organize, organize, organize. It is good to file the items accordingly in order to locate these easily later on when you are going to retrieve these at the end of your contract.

5)    Scan important documents that you think have a higher chance to be referenced but do not require the hard copy

If you have documents that you think would be referenced but does not require any hard copy to be pulled out, then it’s easier to have scanned copies handy. Some service providers would provide hard drive or cloud storage for free or a very minimum fee.

These are just a good start to seeing what are the steps of going thru business storage. There are so many other ways to do it but this can help you jump start it.