Scrap metal firm sentenced after man loses legs
A scrap metal company in Sussex and a local businessman have been sentenced for serious safety breaches after a site worker lost both of his legs whilst fixing a 16-tonne baling machine used to compact scrap metal.
According to a statement from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the 42-year old worker was addressing a problem inside the five-metre long machine at a H Ripley & Co. scrap metal site in Westfield, East Sussex, when the doors of the machine closed upon him.
A remote control, built by John Platt of John Platt Services, Thakeham, West Sussex, failed to deactivate the machine as the worker tried to stop the doors. In an attempt to escape, one leg was severed, and the other had to be amputated later in hospital.
H Ripley & Co. has been fined £60,000 and ordered to pay £34,633 in full costs after admitting breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.
Similarly, John Platt pleaded guilty to breaching Section 6(1) of the same act. He has been fined £10,000 with £5,000 to pay toward costs.
It was announced during the hearing at Lewes Crown Court, that the baling machine took only one minute and 15 seconds to go from ‘car to cube’ with the maximum force of its doors at 180 tonnes.
H Ripley & Co. bought the secondhand baling machine in 2008 in a fire-damaged state with the radio control system in need of repair.
The HSE investigated the incident on 24 May 2011 and found that the company’s isolation procedure for the baler was ‘totally inadequate’ and that the remote control system built by co-defendant John Platt was ‘seriously flawed’.
‘Entirely preventable’
After the court hearing, HSE Inspector Stephen Green said: “This was a horrific incident in which a worker suffered the loss of both legs, endured a sixth-month period in hospital and who will now spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
“It was also entirely preventable, H Ripley & Co. had completely neglected to consider the risks and identify control measures needed to operate the machine safely. It had failed to ensure that there was a system to isolate the machine from power before anyone could get inside.
“There are well-known and significant risks in the waste and recycling sector, and it is imperative that employers fully identify and recognise those risks on their sites and take the necessary action to protect their workforce from the dangers they present.”
Injuries in the waste industry
HSE has previously branded the waste and recycling sector as ‘one of the most dangerous’ to work in, after finding 10 workers and three members of the public suffered fatal injuries in the sector in 2012/13, double that of the year before.
To reduce the number of people killed and seriously injured in the waste and recycling industry, HSE published the ‘Waste Industry Safety and Health (WISH) blueprint 2012-15’, which outlines 24 ‘immediate action points’ that companies dealing with waste and recycling need to take to provide clearer training and safer workplaces.
