Inspections
without prior warning to waste and recycling businesses by the Health and
Safety Executive (HSE) will begin next week, as part of a campaign that runs to
the end of the year.
Rick
Brunt, HSE’s head of waste and recycling said: “The waste and recycling
industry continues to have one of the poorest health and safety records. This
inspection initiative will look at certain activities to ensure effective
management and control of risk.”
The
inspections will ensure measures are being taken by those responsible to
protect workers and employers against risk and injury. The HSE says it “will
not hesitate to use enforcement to bring about improvements”.
Waste
and recycling was highlighted as a priority sector by the HSE when it recently
published its sector plans. This is because the industry has a statistically
higher rate of workplace injury and work-related ill health than other sectors.
Around 120,000 workers make up the sector, and they are more likely to suffer
work-related illness than any other sector.
Within
the sector the main causes of fatal injuries to workers are being struck by
moving vehicles, coming into contact with moving machinery and being injured by
something collapsing or overturning.
The
HSE says such incidents can be prevented when organisations have proper risk
management in place. In the five years to 2016/17 there were 39 fatalities to
workers and 11 members of the public were killed as a result of work activity
in the sector.
Brunt
added: “HSE is calling on anyone working in the industry to take the time to
refresh their knowledge of our advice and guidance, available for free on our
website. Every worker has the right to return from work safe in the knowledge
that their employer takes their health and safety seriously.”
Source MRW – 26th
September 2017