Industry

Waste sector injuries ‘significantly’ above average

Waste sector injuries ‘significantly’ above averageThere were five fatal injuries in the waste sector in 2014/15, taking the five-year total since 2009/10 to 37, according to statistics released by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

Statistics also reveal that there were 11,000 instances of non-fatal injury and illness across the sector over the year, returning a ‘significantly higher’ rate than other industries included in the data.

The waste industry referred to in the figures includes all activities related to the management of various forms of waste (including sewage) as well as the clean-up of contaminated sites. Alongside the waster supply sector, the HSE says, the waste industry accounts for around 0.6 per cent of the UK workforce.

The data does not include the wholesale of waste and scrap, which HSE refers to as recycling (including the collecting, sorting, separating and stripping of used goods). Although ‘recycling’ has previously been included in HSE waste sector statistics, the regulator says that its contribution is small and it has therefore not been included.

The six deaths caused by a Glasgow refuse truck mounting the curb last Christmas were not included, as that has been classified as a road traffic accident.

Six members of the public were also killed in waste-related incidents in 2014/15, but have not been included in the report. Gursawek Singh (33), Ben Farr (28) and Matthew Symonds (34) were all crushed in bins, while Edith Allen (87) and Nicola Berridge (54) were struck by vehicles moving materials and Alan Harris (75) fell ‘from height’ at a materials recovery facility.

Fatal injuries in the waste sector

There were five fatal injuries to workers in the waste sector in 2014/15. The average over the last five years had been seven per year. Across the sector, 3.64 employees in every 100,000 have been fatally injured at work, compared to a rate across all other industries of 0.38 per 100,000. This is consistent with the last five years, in which the fatal injury rate in the waste sector has been between five and 10 times greater than the all-industry rate.

These 2014/15 deaths mean that over the last five years, there have been 37 worker fatalities in the sector.

Nine of these deaths have been caused by the worker being struck by a vehicle, while five have been caused by contact with machinery and four after workers have been trapped by something collapsing. There have been three cases each of workers being ‘struck against’, falling from height and being drowned or asphyxiated. The remaining 10 have been classified as ‘other’ in the statistics.

Non-fatal injuries and illness

According to the figures, 6,000 self-reported cases of work-related illness occurred in the waste sector each year between 2009/10 and 2014/15. This accounts for around 5.1 per cent of the sector’s workforce, significantly higher than the 3.1 per cent rate recorded for workers across all other industries.

Between 2010/11 and 2014/15, an average of 5,000 cases of non-fatal workplace injury have been reported in the waste sector each year. This represents 4.1 per cent of all workers, twice the all-industry rate of 2.0 per cent.

Though the HSE states that these reported figures give the best indication of the scale of workplace injury within the sector, it also provides evidence from the statutory notifications of employers under the ‘Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrence’ regulations (RIDDOR).

The provisional figures show that 1,879 employer-reported non-fatal injuries occurred in the waste sector in 2014/15, almost 70 per cent of which were due to either slips, trips, falls or being struck by an object.

The HSE does say, however, that non-fatal injuries are substantially under-reported under RIDDOR, especially for the self-employed.

Health and safety enforcement

The HSE and local authorities are responsible for enforcing health and safety legislation and for serious offences, inspectors may serve improvement notices, prohibition notices or may prosecute companies.

Provisional figures show that 310 improvement notices were served to the waste sector in 2014/15, with 24 prosecutions. Though no data is given for successful prosecutions in the waste sector specifically, 25 of the 29 cases brought against the waste and water supply sectors resulted in a guilty verdict, with resulting fines totalling over £2,063,000.

Full statistics on injuries in the waste and water supply sectors are available on the HSE website.

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