Employees at a solvent-recycling company put themselves at significant risk by wading into a pool of highly-flammable liquid, which had leaked from a road tanker, in an effort to clean it up.
Wakefield magistrates heard on 19 June that the incident happened on 16 December 2011 at Tradebe Solvent Recycling Ltd’s Weeland Road site in Knottingley, west Yorkshire.
The court heard that after a shift change, one operative started to fill a tanker with paint thinners, unaware it had been filled with methylated spirits during the previous shift.
The vehicle was left for about 15 minutes with the pump running while the worker went to retrieve some paperwork. When he returned, around 3800 litres of highly-flammable liquid had spilled from the tanker.
One worker used his finger to block a drain hole to prevent the liquid from flowing into the site drain, which led to a river. Two other employees found sand for the drain hole and brushes to sweep the liquid elsewhere. The remaining spill was recovered to a fixed storage tank using a vacuum hose.
Traffic movements on the site, which presented possible sources of ignition, were not halted until the firm’s health and safety manager arrived some time later.
The HSE investigated the incident and found that the company did not have a safe system of work in place for filling the tankers, even though the recycling of solvents was the main business activity. It also found that there was no formal system to ensure smooth shift handover, with lax documentation and poor communication.
Workers received inadequate training in handling hazardous substances and dealing with spills, which meant they deviated from the company’s intended procedures. The firm should also have declared it to be a major incident, but this was not done.
Tradebe Solvent Recycling Ltd, part of the Tradebe Waste Management group, admitted breaching s2(1) of the HSWA 1974, by exposing employees to risk while loading highly-flammable liquids and recovering a spillage.
The court heard that a similar incident occurred in 2008 at the company’s Heysham site in Lancashire, following which the company implemented ‘full’ and ’empty’ indicator boards. According to the HSE, the same measures were not introduced at Knottingley and, had they been in place, the later incident could have been avoided.
In mitigation, the company said it believed its failings centred around training and competence, and that had employees been fully trained in following its procedures, the incident could have been avoided.
Tradebe Solvent Recycling Ltd was fined £3000 and ordered to pay £2070 in costs.
After the case, investigating HSE inspector Neil Casey, said: “The nature of the business carried out on the site, where flammable liquids are processed for re-use, meant that there was a risk that a major fire could occur.
“Tradebe Solvent Recycling failed to ensure there were robust safety procedures for filling tankers and a safe system in place for shift changeover — a time that is widely recognised as a potential weakness within industry. There were also failings in the training and instruction given to workers.
“Companies whose businesses rely on the handling of hazardous substances with the potential to cause serious injuries, and even death, cannot afford to be complacent and should have adequate systems to control the risks that they generate.”
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