Plastics firm fined after serious injury

A plastics firm was ordered to pay a total of £14,533 yesterday (28 August) after being found guilty of failing to safely plan lifting operations, thus endangering the lives of its workers.

Speaking at Preston Magistrates’ Court yesterday, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) outlined that failure to adhere to the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998, led to a worker of Preston Plastic Ltd being badly injured when a plastic bale fell on him.

The incident, which occurred on 18 August 2011, was caused when a company employee used a forklift truck to lift two bales of plastic by clamping onto the bottom bale, leaving the second bale to rest on top. The second bale then fell as it was being moved, striking a 26-year-old worker as he was sweeping plastic nearby.

The man received injuries to his head and hands, as well as suffering a fracture to his spine, which required a back brace in order to heal.

According to the prosecution, the incident could have been avoided if Preston Plastics had properly planned the work in advance, and taken into account HSE guidance that advises against using forklift trucks to lift two heavy items, when one is resting on top of the other. This guidance was issued following several deaths caused by toppling loads.

Injuries ‘could easily have been fatal’

At the hearing yesterday, Preston Plastics Ltd pleaded guilty to breaching the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 and was fined £10,000 for the violation, and was ordered to pay £4,533 in prosecution costs.

Speaking after the hearing, HSE Inspector Rohan Lye said: "The employee at Preston Plastics was badly injured when he was struck by the 400 kilogramme bale, but his injuries could easily have been fatal.

"The firm had a legal duty to make sure the work was properly planned, supervised and carried out safely but it failed to do any of this. What's worse is that the forklift truck was regularly used to lift two bales at once, making it almost inevitable that someone would be injured.

"The company has since changed its working practices so that the forklift truck is now only used to lift one bale at a time. If that procedure had been in place at the time of the incident, then the worker's injuries could have been avoided."

Health and safety ‘blueprint’

This article was taken from Issue 69

The HSE recently branded the waste and recycling sector’s safety performance as ‘poor’ after finding that the number of fatalities in the sector is not only rising, but is also 16 times higher than the national average. According to figures released last month, ten workers and three members of the public were fatally injured in 2012/13, nearly double the figure for the previous year.

In order to crack down on the number of incidents occurring in the waste sector, HSE has released a ‘Waste Industry Safety and Health (WISH) blueprint 2013-15’, providing 24 ‘immediate action points’ in order to ensure clearer training and safer workplaces.

Key points listed in the blueprint included:

• producing agreed safety leadership standards for the waste management industry and guidance on ‘what safety leadership looks like and how it is demonstrated’;
• developing sharable training materials for promoting and enhancing worker engagement;
• publishing case studies and real life examples of ‘the positive impact of improved workforce competence, including examples of industry best practice and the potential business benefits’; and
• developing guidance and support on health surveillance (monitoring/screening).

Read more about the WISH blueprint.