Spill Cleanup

Hey again! In this blog I’m going to tell you a little more about my job down here.

A big part of my job is sorting the trash here on station and then getting it ready to be sent back to recycling centers in the US. But another very important part of my job is spill cleanup. Sometimes there are oil spills from the vehicles we use down here; vehicles as small as trucks all the way to really big ones like airplanes! There are also chemical spills sometimes from experiments the scientists are doing. We try to keep Antarctica really clean so that the research scientists do isn’t affected by pollution. Even a spill as small as a little gas leaking out of a car, something that wouldn’t be a big deal at home, needs to be cleaned up right away down here!

Oil spills are pretty easy to clean up – we wear gloves, and sometimes face masks, and shovel the dirty snow into barrels. But chemical spills can be dangerous if we don’t use the right equipment. Before we all came down to Antarctica we had to go to a town in Texas called Corpus Christi to train on how to clean up chemicals.

If something is hazardous it means it is dangerous. HAZMAT stands for HAZardous MATerial, so our training was called HAZMAT training. We had to learn how to tell different chemicals apart and we had to learn how to use our special protective gear.

There are SCBA face masks. SCBA stands for Self Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCUBA stands for Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. With SCUBA gear you can go underwater). These are full face masks that connect to an oxygen tank. That way, if there are fumes or gases coming off the chemical, we will have clean air to breathe while we clean it up.




We also had to wear special protective suits, called "Level A" suits. Level A means they are the highest type of protection. They cover us up completely – even our feet, hands and whole head. This is so that if there is a chemical in the air, or a liquid we need to walk through, it won't touch our skin. They are hard to move in because they are so bulky, so we had to practice walking and picking things up in them. They look pretty funny!






The week we trained in Texas was also a good time to meet the crew I work with. We went to class every day, but we also did fun things like go to the beach together.

So far there haven’t been any chemical spills down here, but there have been oil spills. Whenever a spill occurs, even if it is the middle of the night, we get a call and have to go clean it up. I don’t mind though, because I know that what I am doing helps keep Antarctica clean and safe for science!

Hi Guys!

My name is Aileen, I am Ryan and Mac Lubold’s older sister. I am working all the way down in Antarctica, and this blog is all about my time down here. Things have been very busy here so far!

I am going to start from the beginning of my journey (even though it started way back in July). I’ll write once a week and catch you up on what I’ve been doing down here!

Antarctica is a very special place. It is covered with ice and snow all year long. The constant snow makes it impossible for plants to grow down here. Since there are no plants, people can’t live here permanently either. The only animals are penguins and seals, and those have to live on the coast so they can get in and out of the ocean.

Antarctica is also special because it is a great place for scientists to do research! There are a lot of different research projects going on here-scientist study the earth, the atmosphere, the weather, and the animals—both on land and in the ocean. They do research on small stations all over the continent. I work at the biggest station, McMurdo Station. It is the biggest, but it is only about the size of a small farm. It is all the way on the other side of the planet from New Hampshire, just south of New Zealand.

But I am not a scientist! You might be wondering, “What is Aileen doing down there if she isn’t a scientist?” There are about 1000 people here at McMurdo Station, but only 200 are scientists. The other 800 are people like me, people who support science by keeping the station running. It takes a lot to keep this place running; everyone needs a place to sleep, a place to eat, and equipment that works. There are electricians, mechanics, plumbers, carpenters, cooks, janitors and a lot of other people, too!

I work in the Waste Department. We handle all of the trash that is produced down here. We have one of the best recycling programs in the world! We recycle about 65% of the trash down here. Everything we recycle is boxed up and sent back to the US to big recycling centers, where it is recycled and reused just like your trash at home. We just have a lot more of it!

I had to go to training for my job way back in July. Next week’s blog I’ll tell you about that, and a little more about what I do down here. Here is a picture of McMurdo Station