Discover the boundless possibilities of High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) in our Insights podcast, “HDPE Markets.” Join us as we dive deep into the applications and markets where HDPE reigns supreme, revolutionizing industries for a greener and more sustainable future.

From industrial and mining to power generation and geothermal,  municipal applications, landfill, gas distribution and more this episode unveils the game-changing advantages of HDPE. Learn how this versatile material is reshaping water management, waste reduction, and environmental conservation efforts.

Tune in to hear from subject matter experts and pioneers who are driving transformative change through HDPE. Short, insightful, and impactful, this podcast equips you with the knowledge to embrace HDPE’s potential in creating a brighter tomorrow. 

Sean Moth 

Welcome again to ISCOs insights podcast, we have talked large diameter pipe with Mike James electrofusion. With that Cooper fusion equipment with Andy Niblett. And Curtis Durbin, we recently spoke about part with Gary Bouvet. And our July theme is summer school, we’re going back to the basics HDPE, markets and applications. And we’re going to explore some of the advantages and just some general uses and educate and we couldn’t think of anybody better to start out with and Mark Spelder. Mark, thank you so much for your time, we really appreciate it

Mark Spelder 

Hey Sean. Thanks for having me.

Sean Moth 

Well, Mark, let’s start like we do with all of our guests. Give the listeners an idea of how long you’ve been at ISCO and what your history in this industry is, so to speak.

Mark Spelder 

Yeah, so I was hired 26 years ago, and this last April with ISCO and won a lot of different hats, outside sales to sales management, and asked to come down to our headquarters to kind of spur the side of the business, which would be research and lead gen. process. So you know, right now it’s I’m doing along with marine sales and helping people out with industrial sales.

Sean Moth 

Fantastic. Well, we know you have broad based knowledge. And we’re going to take kind of the 30,000 foot view, as the summer school theme is, is kind of back to basics. So we’re not going to delve too deep into it. But obviously, as we touch on some of these subjects, if you the listener want to know more, Mark and his team are happy to answer those questions, contact us through the website, we’ll we’ll get you to the right people. Because as much as you know, which is about a million times more than I do. And as much as I know, there are certainly other people in these specific markets and applications that can really get into the weeds with you. If you have further questions, but we’re just going to stay basic and talk about some applications, primarily we’re talking industrial side of things. And I guess that starts with power generation. It’s fascinating to me, I’m still new to this, but I don’t think of a solar farm or wind farm being a practical use for high density polyethylene piping. But it is and it’s because of the water that’s used to basically cool down these structures.

Mark Spelder 

Yeah, each each application you have on the power Gen market has a different reason for using HTP. But a lot of it comes down to being corrosion resistant, leak free, you know, most time or pulling raw water from an ocean or a lake or a river, and bring that through the system to cool things. And of course, it’s treated and brought back out to where it was pulled from. So water raw water intakes, you mentioned, you know, on the on the side of wind, we’re looking at the collection systems, really just bringing all the wiring back to, in this case, the actual turbine. Yeah, you know, that type of thing. So it’s a little different, depending on the application. But it really speaks to our our characteristics.

Sean Moth 

Obviously, the durability and flexibility really playing a factor in that wind farming. I mean, we you can’t drive anywhere in the US now without seeing those turbines all over. Yeah,

Mark Spelder 

they’re everywhere. We’re also going offshore with it and you’re using a lot of polyethylene pipe there too.

Sean Moth 

Is that is that a newer market and application as far as the HDPE? Specter goes, so to speak? Or is it is it been around a while.

Mark Spelder 

So it’s been around for a long time on the power side of things. But as you see kind of an uptick in our evolution of what we’re using for, for power, you know, wind is a big thing. And you’re seeing more than the collection systems, like I mentioned before, and then you go in offshore, there’s a there’s a lot opportunities, a lot of wind, a lot of open space to be able to to harness that wind and use it for power.

Sean Moth 

And I did touch on nuclear, my understanding that has a lot more to do with fire mitigation and that, that type of thing. I’m assuming that the durability the lifespan if there’s a disaster, so to speak, that you need that reliability from the high density polyethylene,

Mark Spelder 

yeah, where a secondary cooling water system is typically we’re going to use for nuclear. So you know, obviously, if there’s a serious issue, they want to be able to douse and cool down the system as much as possible. And we’ll be using the nuclear for the secondary water. That case would be for anything to to reduce the heat and that kind of thing is going on in that that issue.

Sean Moth 

So moving on from power generation, we get into a broad term that I think was a little confusing for me initially, but that’s district energy. On the industrial side of thing, it primarily involves standard HDPE but it also involves pert, which we talked to at length with Gary Beauvais and then OQ with another product, so high temperature, and again, it’s water transmission, so to speak, but district energy, I guess the primary focus of district energy would be campus energy, a lot of schools love that sustainability that buzzword to try to be friendly to the environment. HDPE falls in that category quite easily. Yeah,

Mark Spelder 

definitely. You’re looking to reduce your carbon footprint right. And with that, you’re looking like you said campus energy, District Energy kind of the same thing. It’s basically heating and cooling, multiple buildings, your hot water, your steam, your chilled water, that type of thing and HDPE or pert, or even art Thermal really depending on the application within that are going to be what you’re looking to use. And again, it comes down to corrosion resistance, leak free flexibility, those type of things that are going to give you the reason as to why you want to use it in your campus environment or district and environment. I

Sean Moth 

know that there are a lot of colleges and universities around the nation that have explored putting in HDP. Texas a&m is one of the major field reports. That’s one of the biggest campuses in America. I mean, not only in size in terms of students, but just the scope of the campus has an enormous footprint. And they basically, they went all in I mean, they were having unbelievable leak rates with their old legacy systems and can’t imagine a better poster for for using HDPE. And the what they did at Texas a&m, if

Mark Spelder 

I recall, is 40 to 50 gallons a minute. That’s kind of crazy. And they’ve reduced that significantly at this point using an HTP. Or pert, or again, Aquatherm depend on the situation, your thermoplastic family, if you if you will, yeah, absolutely.

Sean Moth 

I know. Hospitals, detention centers, oddly enough, even business campuses, and pulp and paper, I know that we talked a little bit about that with part, but the they all kind of fall into this district energy. And that includes data centers, and I know a lot of data centers, it’s imperative that they keep the equipment cool. And so that kind of comes into play with what the applications are with HDPE there.

Mark Spelder 

Yeah, absolutely. You know, the data center part of it, they really talked about mission critical, which is, of course, the actual processing of the data, that type of thing. And they’re looking at chilled water, condenser, condenser, water, and an underground water piping to the actual data center itself. And, and again, there’s a lot of uses for HDPE. pert would be used in the hot water pulling it out, maybe even Aqua therm on the inside of the building, it’s an easier product to probably put into the ceiling and that type of thing. So it’s just really about cooling. The actual, you know, the processors themselves. Sure. And so they’re bringing a lot of water to and from.

Sean Moth 

And I know that the the emphasis, so to speak is a lot of new builds, so to speak. And I think most people experienced that these different forms of pipe, whether it be Predock with them, or HDP work better with a new build. But that’s not to say that you can’t retrofit I mean, that’s what we’re talking about at Texas a&m, this was a campus wide effort to retrofit to get rid of the legacy system that was leaking. Now Absolutely,

Mark Spelder 

we can definitely can can help you put spool systems together that type of thing through our fabrication department, but also you can do stuff on on site. And if you look at like maybe an aqua therm in this case, it’s it’s just easier, it’s lightweight, that type of thing can be fused in the ceiling, using no McElroy special equipment. So there’s really a lot of different alternatives, than going back to your legacy pipe over and over again, on different phases. Yeah,

Sean Moth 

instead of the band aid, it is the full solution. This brings us to another industrial application that I probably know the least about. But I know that I shouldn’t say I know, but maybe there’s some similarities to what’s being done with the water being pulled from an ocean or lake into a system then re refreshed into that system. And that’s geothermal. And I know right here in our own backyard is one of the bigger geothermal projects that I’ve read about. I’m sure there are many that are larger at Louisville International Airport, Muhammad Ali International Airport. But take me through why geothermal is an application that suits so well with HDP yes,

Mark Spelder 

that geothermal, really just trying to use the, our, in our world or you know, Earth sorry. And really just kind of bring polyethylene pipe into the ground to collect the heat, and bring it back up to heat, whatever it might, might be, and also is brought back down into the earth to cool. And so that system is is, you know, a circular system that’s going to allow you to, to create cooling and heating, and a lot less expensive than maybe some other power generations.

Sean Moth 

And we we mentioned campus energy. I know I’ve spoken with with Stuart, Stuart Lyle about geothermal and that a lot of campuses are exploring the advantages of some geothermal applications within their buildings.

Mark Spelder 

Yeah, it’s definitely important to, you know, look at using the ground source, heat for schools, military, bases, hospitals, that type of thing. And again, it speaks to polyethylene. Again, it can handle a lot of those extreme conditions. And again, you’re gonna you’re gonna put those loops or polyethylene circles back into the ground, to pull that heat or to cool that heat, depending on the situation and what you’re trying to do. And

Sean Moth 

my understanding too, is for instance, at the airport and you’re not going down 50 100 feet, you are drilling down there to get to what amounts to basically the heating of the core of the earth and that to get that energy.

Mark Spelder 

Definitely, yeah, it’s their specialized the geothermal drillers out there that are gonna be doing that work is that just not everyday kind A tractor that’s

Sean Moth 

uncertain. Yeah, incredibly complicated, but fascinating. Nonetheless, this gets into one of your strengths. And we’re talking about marine and I guess I need a question answered. I’m familiar with a lot of the dock piping and some of those structures. Do we consider desalinization plants? A marine application? Is that more of a just a general industrial power generation? How do we classify?

Mark Spelder 

DISA, we’re gonna put that as industrial is probably what we’re doing. I mean, I know, eventually, we’re getting to drinking water at that point. But it’s really kind of industrial application osmosis of pulling out that salt. So it’s becomes drinking drinking water. You know, in regards to marine applications, or a lot of different applications out there, like you mentioned, there’s going to be floating docks, you can cap polyethylene, it’s going to be able to float. So we’ll do anything from breasting logs to floating docks to piling sleeves, a lot of piling sleeves that get nicked up doing might be getting rusty, that type of thing. They’ll use polyethylene ously. Those. We get involved in aquaculture, whether it’s floating pens out in the ocean, or in a sound, you know, water if you would, or it could be on land, or we’re doing recirculating aquaculture systems. So there’s a lot of different things within the marine industry. But again, it comes down to leak free corrosion resistance, impact resistance, that type of thing when you get on the, on the marine side of things

Sean Moth 

I would imagine it’s fascinating to me, it’s somewhat unrelated, but you know, the the transmission or the the transportation of HDPE. I feel like maybe had some light switches go on because it can be literally pulled behind a barge across the ocean if need be. And I think there was a job of Mercer Island up in Seattle where their staging area, it had to be out on water because of her horizontal directional drilling job where they couldn’t stage it on land that had the land water. And that’s the benefit of the fact that it does float. I mean, it’s really fascinating. No, it

Mark Spelder 

definitely is. And then you have manufacturers of the polyethylene pipe that will actually extrude right out into the the ocean or whatever, Lake or wherever they might be on and then eventually, you’re gonna cut down on your Fusion time at that point, right? Yeah. So you can do pretty long lengths, you know, not unusual to do 150 200 foot lengths at a time. Yeah,

Sean Moth 

that’s incredible. Yeah. I said, I don’t know much about geothermal. Actually, I know less about mining and aggregate. And I I’m, I’m curious about this, because my my first impression on my research is, we’re talking about rough soil gravel conditioners, especially with the aggregate industry, what is that application there for HDPE.

Mark Spelder 

So you really have two different things you have mining and you have aggregate mining is going to be your precious metals, or what they call hard rock mining. That’s your copier, gold, your silver, that type of thing. And really what they’re doing there is they’re using harsh chemicals to actually mine whatever they’re looking for, again, copper, copper, gold, or, or silver. And they’re they’re digging pits and the watering the site, which they’ll use a lot of polyethylene on creating slurry lines with those chemicals inside of it. So you need a lot of corrosion resistance that at that point, you need a lot of flexibility. And you need a lot of it’s just needs to be rugged product, because we’re going to drag it around. So not to mention it’s got UV protected product and at show, so it can just lay out in the in the bottom of the mine that type of thing without any variation to it. So that’s kind of the hard rock mining side of things. And then you have the aggregate side, which is going to be your sand and your gravel and that type of thing. And there’s probably a little bit simpler applications where they’re, you know, digging for whatever they’re looking for, again, sand or gravel. And they’ll eventually there deepwater the pit using polyethylene pipe, or they might make into a slurry solution and actually pump the sand with water, or the gravel with the water all the way up to where they need to eventually to stage that product to be able to sell it. So there’s kind of two applications but they’re very similar. But again, hardrock mining versus aggregator to kind of two different things.

Sean Moth 

But the durability obviously it’s kind of the common thread for both of those. It’s crucial. Absolutely. And then I’ve heard about potash mining, especially up in the provinces in Canada, Saskatchewan. I know in particular, is that is that a hybrid of the two? Do you know much about potash mining, you

Mark Spelder 

know, a little bit obviously they’re mining for potash and they use that for fertilizer, they’ll use that for you know, an additive into concrete into the into concrete making that type of thing. And it’s kind of a crazy site to go to because it’s a spaghetti of just polyethylene everywhere. Different wall thicknesses, different sizes. It’s it becomes kind of mind blowing when you go out there how much they use polyethylene and the potash mine. There’s experience down in North Carolina, South Carolina area, like you said all the way up. This is Saskatoon area also. So potash is again going to be using it because it’s durable, leak free, and then UV protection. Again, they’re just kind of stringing it out everywhere and pulling it and pushing it come out of their way as they’re doing doing their work. Now I

Sean Moth 

remember talking to Jimmy kirkstone, where he brought up two points, he said, one, if it’s, if I can run my tractor trailer, you have my front end loader over and it doesn’t shatter, it’s gonna work. And then he also touched on the fact that if people trust natural gas to transmit through HDPE, then you can trust anything because of the dire consequences when there’s problems. And that leads us into a little more on the municipal side, but still the industrial side. And that is oil and gas extraction, as well as natural gas distribution. And let’s start with the extraction. We’re talking those wells we see in a lot of this down in I think, Texas and out and then Wyoming planes in that but crude oil, natural gas. And Brian, you were telling me, yeah,

Mark Spelder 

so the oil and gas market, and they’re really moving a lot of water to and from the drill rigs, what they’re doing. And then, in certain parts of the country, when you drill for oil, you’re also gonna get brine. Sure, and you’re gonna get some gas. And so they have to do some separation. So not unusual use use three different lines of polyethylene separation, but really, it’s about bringing water to and from the drill rig, when it comes to the oil and gas market. You have to have a lot of inventory. Guys will call you today and want it today. Yeah, fusion equipment, that type of thing. It’s a really fast pace. environment in the oil and gas side of things. Like you mentioned, Texas, Balkans, Marcellus Shale, these are all different areas of the country that that have boomed or bust over time, depending on the oil and depending on the price of oil. But again, just think about moving water to and from the drill rig, typically. Okay.

Sean Moth 

And then natural gas distribution is I think what Jimmy was speaking to, if you can trust that, it is, it is not something to be messed with. And that’s the yellow stripe or the yellow pipe and, and typically use of electrofusion as well. But tell me about why it works. So well.

Mark Spelder 

Yeah. So it’s really what we call the municipal gas market for us. And, and really, what you have is is, you know, typically they’re gonna use polyethylene pipe underground, and they’re gonna use steel above ground. There’s a ton of maintenance in this because if something leaks and sparks people die, right, we don’t want to have that happen, of course. So there’s a lot of maintenance to it. So if you can use a product that’s corrosion resistant, leak free underground, it’s very important, right? There’s also a part of this, that it’s high quality, there’s got to be traceability to it from resin all the way through. So I think again, that’s those are some of the key key factors for why people would use polyethylene to blow below ground. Again, a lot of inventory, a lot of fusion needs, all these different municipal gas companies need to have fusion equipment on their trucks to take care of things immediately. And we’re there for them when it comes to Fusion training. And of course, the McElroy equipment.

Sean Moth 

Yeah, I would imagine the Highland comes into play too, as well with a little portable fusion on site. So the

Mark Spelder 

Highland electrofusion process, a great product, and more and more of the municipal gas customers are leaning towards it.

Sean Moth 

Yeah, incredible. Well, we have covered a lot, really appreciate it. But before we let you go and move on to our next guest, I want you to speak to any thoughts you have about the future of HDPE. And whether or not we can anticipate advances. You know, it was how many years ago we didn’t talk about large diameter pipe. It was how many years ago we couldn’t envision the Highland Supercell and being able to fuse with a battery. Do you envision advances, anything in particular that you’re curious to see? Or do you think there’s markets yet unexplored? I know, we will definitely get into municipal side of thing with Mark Florio, but But how about your your thoughts in general, just on the future of HDPE,

Mark Spelder 

you have been in this business for 26 years, and we’ve already seen different levels of resin in the latest is 4710 expectations are going to see better resins, thinner walls, which is less poundage, which is less cost. But at a higher pressure rating, I think it’s one that you’re going to see, there’s just it seems like every application, we kind of start out slowly and drip into it. And then eventually, once the decision makers, key decision makers in those applications, understand polyethylene pipe, then they kind of blow it out from there. And they really start to sell and we start to sell more and more of it because of all the different characteristic characteristics that we’ve talked about today. So it’s really just getting footholds in certain applications. And then there’s gonna always be new ones. And as part of my team that I work with now is just really trying to find new applications, new decision makers, to make sure we’re calling on educating them on HDP by

Sean Moth 

Yeah, don’t fear new. Sometimes it’s the best answer. There’s a reason we don’t continue to carry water in the municipal applications with hollowed out logs, we found better ways right? Exactly. Mark, I can’t thank you enough for your knowledge and your time and obviously your dedication ISCO and we’ll look forward to talking to you again down the road but thank you so much. Sean, thanks

Mark Spelder 

for having me. Appreciate it.

Sean Moth 

Thanks again to mark spelder for all of his insights on a lot of the industrial applications. And then we got into little municipal with natural gas distribution. But now we’re going to steal our focus back to a full on municipal applications of HDPE. And our back to the basics and summer school podcast. Mike Foderaro joins us, Mark, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it.

Mike Foderaro

Yeah, happy to be here.

Sean Moth 

So as we did with Mark, as we’ve done with all of our other guests, just give a little introduction to our listeners, what what your title is here, what you’ve done at ISCO, how long you’ve been in the industry. Yeah, sure. So

Mike Foderaro

I’m the Director of Sales for ISCO manage four different sales teams. I’ve been with ISCO 14 years. And I know that because I started one year after I got married. So I know it’s my 15 year anniversary. So I know I’ve been here 14 years.

Sean Moth 

That’s a smart man. It’s a smart man. Happy wife. Happy life.

That’s right. That’s right. So I’ve been here 14 years, I’ve done a variety of different things for ISCO have done inside sales have done estimating. I’ve done outside sales. And now I’m not here. So I haven’t been I’ve been with the HDPE market for 14 years. Prior to that I spent about 10 years in the general waterworks market or worked for what is it now corn main, so I’ve got to kind of mold that valve and hydrant background. Yeah, different types of pipe materials, ductile iron, PVC, so I’ve sold that, too. So now I’m on the physical side. Yeah, we’re

Mike Foderaro 

on the good side. Well, then that’s perfect. We’ll just delve right in municipal applications. Again, the purpose of the podcast here is the the July theme is just try to understand markets and within the markets, the applications. And basically what we’ve learned from the industrial side is we’re conveying water, we’re conveying gas. There’s some variations in mining and aggregate for the most part, though, it’s just water and gas. And I guess if we go to, you know, the roots of this go, it began with with water, you know, with with water and irrigation, right. Obviously, it was the golf course irrigation systems that were very prevalent and continue to be so but just in general. Conveying water HDPE is great, because,

yeah, so So it went from irrigation, I think it started to bleed into the municipal water market where they started where they were typically using Bell spigot pipe systems, or using ductile iron every major cities ductile iron pipe, and then maybe they’ll sneak in PVC, but predominately those were Bell and spigot systems. And when you start talking about municipal water, I think one of the biggest issues with with municipal water is water wall. So you don’t want to lose water. Its water is revenue, you don’t want to lose it in general. And so when you switch from a bell spigot system to a fusible system with no joints, and you get zero leakage, I think that’s where it starts is the zero leakage aspect. Well, and

Mike Foderaro 

from the impression I get to obviously the the lifespan is a big part of it too, because he’s stuck the lighting systems that were installed in the 50s 60s 70s and makes me feel old, but even the 80s and that, you know, they begin to fail, they begin those leaks, whereas when you will replace with an HDPE you’re looking at 50 to 100 years if it’s fused properly and installed properly.

Yeah, absolutely. You’re looking at 100 year system for what No, yeah, lasts longer than that. And you know, when you talk about these musim, you mentioned a couple things that the water main breaks, you know, as those older systems start to corrode, you get ground movement, the balance pick at the rigid systems, when you get moving with a crack HDPE really solves for a lot of those problems, that

Sean Moth 

flexibility and that durability comes into play. I guess water and sewer kind of go hand in hand, so to speak, and then a lot of force mains and and that and others project that I’m gonna go visit here in a few days out in America’s heartland. But But sewer is a big industry, obviously with the green stripe on the HDPE pipe. Sure,

absolutely. Yeah. So that’s typically what you see, as you see the sewer departments adopt it a little quicker than the water departments, there’s a few less connections to deal with. You’re not you don’t have fire hydrants and service connections, it’s usually just straight runs. And so those are usually the first, the first people in the utility department to actually adopt HDPE. And they can directly drill it, there’s a lot of clever installation techniques you can use with HDPE, you might not be able to use with with other pipe systems. And when you get a straight run of sewer pipe where there’s not a whole lot going on in between, you get into slip lining and pipe. Right, you know, and other other methods to rehab those sewer systems. Yeah,

Mike Foderaro 

and part of that, too, is the the sustainability aspect of it is not just retaining the water or preventing the leaks preventing the maintenance preventing the cost, but it is the fact that that some of those trenchless applications really give you a huge benefit in terms of time money, and again, as we said impact environmentally speaking,

absolutely. You’re not You’re not opening up a trench. There’s a safety aspect to that there’s there’s a nuisance aspect to that you’re not utilizing as much equipment. It’s all underground. You keep it there. And you go right through. Yeah, very easy.

Sean Moth 

When we talk about irrigation. We get into the broader sense too. And I know a lot of this is out west where the climate is very dry, the soil is very dry. We’ve had a lot of these canals, these irrigation canals that are being enclosed. You know, they they’re losing 15 to 25% of the water annually to evaporation and seepage. And so these canals, which can be a hazard to kids that are playing around them, now turned into large diameter PVC pipe, they get buried, you put dirt on top, you make a park, and you still get to convey that water. And it seems like a booming business rates DEP in it a perfect application for it. Absolutely.

As you mentioned, yeah, when you’ve got that open canal system, the run and all those problems of seepage and evaporation and even contamination, because it’s open to the it’s open to the environment, right. And so obviously, it makes a whole lot of sense to close that in to deal with HDP. Again, you’re talking about west where water is precious, or Conservancy, the zero leakage thing plays a big role in that you have no joins. Another interesting thing about that, if you look at the way some of those canals cut through the landscape, and they’re whining, and they’re curving, a lot of times, you can do that with HDPE. And just flex the pipe and you can follow the catheter or the canal without using a ton of fittings, which which helps out a lot I was

Mike Foderaro 

gonna say, because if you were to do the same project with a legacy piping system, I mean, the time you would invest in that 15 degree turn you you just you don’t make with PVC, I mean, you you’ve you’ve got to find joints, you’ve got to put in the joints, you’ve got to put in the labor. So it really becomes cost saving on so many levels because you’re not losing the water. And you don’t have to take so much time with the installation. Yeah,

absolutely. It’s a heck of a lot easier. Somewhat

Sean Moth 

in line with that. But but a little bit different. But still focusing on water is culvert rehabilitation. A culvert is basically an apparatus that allows water to be diverted. Usually it’s under a road or a railroad. Typically, we’ve looked at corrugated metal, I know we’ve all driven by him, we’ve seen him like this driveways. After a few years, they start rusting out, they start failing, you see the dirt around and starting to fail. So with specifically spiral Lytx, and snap tight, you get an opportunity here to rehabilitate these culverts by inserting a smaller diameter. And I know from my experiences that the flow rate really is one of those big benefits of that and why HDPE works. Yeah, you

could actually go the smaller size or reduce the flow because he is such a slick surface, you’re actually the hydraulics actually probably work out better, even by reducing ID Yeah.

Mike Foderaro 

And the other impression I get from culvert rehab is that, you know, if you were to replace a pipe that you know, the digging, we talked about the environmental impact the sustainability, but also once you you get that grounded, you basically have re fortified the area around the pipe. And so you’re almost better off after you’ve rehabilitated the pipe than you were when it’s first installed.

Yeah, absolutely. So once you go out that annular space, that’s a permanent solution. That’s a structural permanent solution with better hydraulics than you had before. That you’re gonna get 100 year design life out of when you’re replacing a system, you might have gotten 50 years out before it starts corroding. Absolutely.

Sean Moth 

And the whole snap that inspire light to me is very fascinating. Because as opposed to electrofusion, but fusion, it’s like it sounds it’s almost like grown up Legos, like you’re snapping them together. Like it’s kind of cool. So

I thought Yeah, and and that’s the major selling point of using that product is it’s so easy to put in, you know, when you’re when you’re working in that environment to cover water going through. So you can’t sometimes you don’t want to do the fusion process down there. And the fact that you can snap it together, that means that utilities are working with, they can use their own crews to do it. Yeah. Or they can use a local contractor. But it’s so easy to do that anyone can do it. Yeah,

Mike Foderaro 

the training from a snap better spiral light compared to but fusion. While they’re both teachable, it’s a whole lot easier to do the former than

the latter, it’s a whole lot easier. And that’s that should be very attractive to DOD. Finally,

Sean Moth 

we’re gonna lean on you to delve into the world of Andy Rogers. He’s the guru and he I mean, he is the International godfather of landfill bush. But when we talk about landfill, landfill is a market and within that are two primary applications. That is the least shade and the methane Correct. Explain that a little bit. And why HDP so positive there.

So you know, in years past, when they would do a landfill, they wouldn’t collect anything, at least they just let it seep into the ground. And then in 1988, they came out with, they call the subtitle D, where they required all the landfills to collect the leaching leach it essentially is all the water filtering through the landfill through all that trash. So now they’re collecting all that and then getting rid of it, they temporarily store it, and then they’ll bring it to a treatment facility. So it’s not seeping into the ground, right. And then on the gas side, they’re requiring him to collect all the gas that’s generated from the decomposing materials where he got all those organic materials decomposing, it’s creating gas. What are you gonna do with it? So you can either flare off and borrow it, or you can use it to generate electricity, or in some cases you can use it to for natural gas. Yeah, and

Mike Foderaro 

I’ve heard stories from me about landfills that actually power the vehicles that run the landfill from a result of the methane that they’ve collected when when you go by and you see the torch, sometimes in a landfill lit up the kind of burning money in a sense. And from a, again, we keep hitting on sustainability. But that’s hard to even wrap your brain around that you are almost self sustaining at the landfill by realizing that methane.

That’s right, yeah. And they can, they’re getting better and better at doing that, you know, eventually they’re gonna that’s they’re taking those taking that gas and piping it over to a high BT EU renewable natural gas facility, they can get the quality of the gas to such a degree that you can actually power it’s the same as the natural gas coming into your home.

Sean Moth 

That’s crazy. That’s crazy oil from a landfill. That’s unbelievable. And it’s sad that it took till 1988 to get there. And leach aid when I first heard the word I was I was foreign to me. But if, if you liken it, imagine you’ve got that trash bag out on the curb and trash didn’t come pick it up for two weeks. And then you poke a hole in the bottom. And that’s weird brown orange color liquid comes through. Imagine that times a million. And just the impact you’re saving. For my understanding too. It’s a basically a perforated pipe system. That kind of the pulls it from the from the ground. Yeah, it’s

a perforated pipe system that runs to a pump. And they just they pump it out, and they pump it into a forcement a door contain forcement with HDPE. So it doesn’t seep into the environment. Once they get outside. They already have trash. Yeah, that’s why you CP is such a perfect, perfect pipe system for that application. It’s a nasty environment. Right? And yeah, from corrosion resistance of HCP.

Mike Foderaro 

It’s the perfect pipe to use. Yeah, that tube regulation, corrosion on other other legacy pipe systems would be devastating. Those systems wouldn’t last at all they wouldn’t make. And if I’m not mistaken, I think some of the similar technology has been taken into some farming applications with methane gathering. It’s really, it’s incredible. It’s incredible. I mean, we’ve gone 30,000 foot level on markets and applications. And I know we’ve left out some specific applications but but hopefully this has given us an opportunity to just get a general idea as again, our July theme was just kind of back to the basics. But for you, Mark, looking ahead, the future of HDPE I know you talked about the years you’ve been in this industry, from when you entered the industry to today, you probably can’t even begin to fathom all the changes the revolutionary advancements in that. Sure. What do you see down the road? Maybe for HDPE? Is there anything that you look to get some ideas from Mark, but I want to bounce that off of you to the first thing

obviously the pipe just keeps getting bigger? Yeah, I then you see that, particularly on those caught on those canal enclosure projects, right. Used to be you can only get pipe that big with steel. Yeah. But now, you know, we’re doing one out west in Utah and other stomacher canal project, which you probably heard about 78 inch HDP. We did one in Canada 88 inch, it keeps getting bigger. And with that getting bigger the equipment keeps getting Yeah. So you have to keep making advances. You have to catch up with the pipe production. You gotta make advances on equipment. Yeah. And I think that’s another aspect of it, too. I think the equipment can continue to advance and get better. Yeah,

Sean Moth 

I know, we’ve we’ve seen the talent and the tech to do it and the widows and all those inaction it is it’s really fascinating. Well, Mike, we can’t thank you enough for your time really appreciate the insight and, and hopefully we’ve answered some questions. And I’ll again stress that if we haven’t answered a question or if you have more questions about one of these markets or applications, please visit our website, check with our people because we have all the answers. And if we don’t we’ve got a guy to cubicles down. We’ve got a gal down the hall that will have all the answers. But Mark, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Sean Moth 

So we want to remind you to sign up for the insights Webinar will vote and Gary move a Conjunction Junction talking but fusions function that’s Thursday, July 27. As the back to the basics continues. For all the webinars, blogs, podcast field reports is go dash pipe.com. Again, we hope you’ve learned something we really appreciate your time. Look forward to talking to you next time on our insights podcast from Mark Spelder. I’m Sean moth. I’ll talk to you next time.