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Safety and Health Practitioner (SHP) is first for independent health and safety news.
September 18, 2012

Spate of deaths prompts HSE warning to waste sector

The HSE has cautioned the waste and recycling industry to redouble its efforts on health and safety, following nine deaths in separate incidents over the summer.

Nine lives were lost in separate incidents in just 12 weeks between June 2012 and September 2012, with several occurring in skip-hire and waste-transfer premises. Two of the incidents occurred on 17 August, one involving an employee being run over by a wheeled loading shovel at a waste-transfer site in Watford; the other saw an employee trapped in a waste compactor at a recycling plant in Batley, Leeds. In the latter incident, the worker died on 19 August.

Heather Bryant, HSE operations director and lead for waste and recycling strategy, said: “These fatal accidents should be a stark reminder for all employers in this sector to check their controls on use of vehicles and equipment, and to make sure that staff are properly trained and supervised.

“We will not hesitate to take action if we find evidence that lives are being put at risk. There is no room for complacency in this sector – close attention must be given to equipment like compactors and skip vehicles.”

HSE investigations into the nine fatalities are ongoing. The regulator says seven of the nine fatalities are likely to be recorded under the core 2007 Standard Industrial Classification code 38 of waste collection, treatment and disposal activities, and materials recovery. This figure already exceeds the total number of five fatal injuries to workers provisionally recorded for the whole of last year under the same code.

Stephen Freeland, health and safety policy advisor at the Environmental Services Association (ESA), said: “There are inherent hazards in the waste-sector working environment owing to the use of heavy machinery and large moving vehicles, along with the need for collection operatives to work in public roads. Because of this, health and safety must be an absolute priority for the industry and HSE is right to challenge the sector’s employers to ensure that this is the case.”

Only one of the nine deaths involved an ESA member organisation, but Freeland insisted that the Association would not rest on its laurels when it comes to health and safety.

He added: “Since the launch of the ESA’s Accident Reduction Charter in 2004, our members have achieved steady annual declines in accident rates, with total accidents down almost 70 per cent. But any fatality or serious accident is one too many and ESA and its members are committed to achieving the best possible health and safety performance.”

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