Kickstart: Safety is important in any language

Injection molder and mold maker Port Erie Plastics' home of Harborcreek, Pa., is in a region that also is a refugee resettlement location, which means that a lot of residents grew up speaking languages other than English.

So when Port Erie learned about Penn State Behrend professor Ashley Yochim's work to develop multilanguage safety signage for Gannon University in Erie, Pa., it reached out for help to create its own multilingual signs.

"We are always looking for ways to engage our team and create a strong sense of belonging," Heather Evans, Port Erie's human resources manager, said in a news release from Penn State Behrend. "We believe that our diverse workforce makes us stronger, and it also makes this a fun place to work."

Behrend and Gannon students joined forces to translate signs into Arabic, Nepali, Spanish, Swahili, Vietnamese, and traditional and simplified Chinese.

The first multilingual signs the company installed featured a daily safety checklist printed in nine languages. The signs are posted at every workstation.

Pittsburgh is delaying a plastic retail bag ban that was set to go into effect in about two weeks.

The Pittsburgh City Council voted unanimously to ban single-use plastic bags on April 14, 2022, with implantation to begin exactly one year later. But on March 23, the city announced the date would move to Oct. 14 to give it more time to update legislation. The changes will require the city to launch and maintain a website page dedicated to public information on the project; direct the Department of Public Works to develop and share lists of where retailers can access paper bags and reusable plastic bags; and create a framework for the city to issue warnings and escalating fines for noncompliance.

It is not, however, abandoning the concept.

"This extra time will allow us to do the work to be able to enact this policy with proper guidance for everyone in order to make this as smooth as possible for all of us," Mayor Ed Gainey said in a news release.

Philadelphia officials have ended public advisories about water quality following a March 24 latex emulsion spill from a Trinseo plant in Bristol, Pa., just 13 miles from one of the city's water intake pipes. The city has concluded  the water remains safe to drink. The spill initially prompted the city to advise residents to drink only bottled water, but it later changed that message to note it was monitoring the quality.

The city says the intake valve on the Delaware River is one of three to supply residents. The others take water from the Schuylkill River.

The chemical plant is operated by Altuglas LLC, a Trinseo subsidiary.

On March 28, Philadelphia officials said "no contaminants have been found in [the] water system at any point since the spill."