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Waste Industry Health & Safety problems and ATEX and DSEAR in context
Inspiration for this article arose from an article: NO CHANGE IS NOT AN OPTION, by Chris Murphy, Deputy Chief Executive, CIWM, published in "Wastes Management", April 2006 edition.
The waste industry has been singled out as one the most dangerous in terms of health and safety, but how has this state of affairs arisen? This is not wholly or even necessarily partially due to issues related to ATEX and DSEAR.
The Bomel Report, Mapping Health and Safety Standards commissioned by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in 2004 gave all those in the industry with some stark figures on just how poor the performance of the industry has been in the recent years.
The activities carried out within the Waste Management Industry are very wide and varied and do incur many risks. There is also a great deal of innovation in the industry as is essential if we are to comply with the waste targets set by government.
The Bomel report quoted the accident rate within the UK Waste Management Industry at five times the national average and a fatality rate ten times the national average.
These shocking statistics created a response from most of those with H&S responsibility in the industry to change the thinking on training in health and safety, to still further increase
efforts to make it an across company wide (chairman to operative level) duty and to embed the philosophy of safety in the workplace.
In the past it is clear that raising of the status of H&S level has not been applied with sufficient vigour, and it hasn't resulted in enough concerted action sufficiently widely across the industry.
Why do I say this?
I do have good reason, and it is because in March 2006 a safety alert released by the HSE made it clear that there have been no fewer than nine work related deaths in a recent eight-week time span in the waste and recycling industries.
Measured and credible data are few and far between in our industry sector, but while we have no reason to disbelieve in these statistics, it is worth detailed analysis.
More detailed study shows that Bomel's report and the safety alert revolve mostly around accidents which include operatives being hit by refuse collection vehicles (RCVs) or cars as the most common industry workplace accident. These are road traffic accidents that are waste-related.
Many of these incidents are more directly related to the industry's performance than others and in the final analysis household and industrial waste collection involves the dangerous activity of vehicles working on crowded roads.
It can be assessed that that there are lot of these vehicles around daily and there could be something like 4000 Refuse Collection Vehicles on the roads of the UK during every weekday and most Saturdays. So it is statistically inevitable that a proportion will be involved in accidents.
Add that to the fact that these RCVs are constantly engaged in continually picking-up and dropping-off bins in urban and suburban environments and the collection crews are involved in regular trips back and forth across the highway while collecting, discharging and returning containers.
We are not going to belittle the tragic circumstances, and the untold grief caused. Nor would we wish that there should be even one injury or death - but it is important to look at this in context.
What is not in question is that there are large parts of the duties of the waste/resource management that are by their nature very high risk. This may be due to the type of waste itself, storage emissions, the hazards necessitated by treatment, or the plant required to transport and process it.
All the major employers in the waste management industry are now actively working to improve their safety record. There, is also now a much higher level of recognition of the importance of understanding the risks, quantifying them, and finding safer ways of working. The ATEX and
DSEAR regulations are important within this context, although limited to just the area of hazardous substances and explosions these might cause.
The UK's CIWM Scientific & Technical Committee has also been active in raising the awareness of H&S, providing training, and generally furthering the level of continuous H&S quality compliance throughout the UK waste industry.
The ATEX and DSEAR are an important player this overall process. We cannot continue to see the tragedy of injuries and fatalities in the sector without doing something. NOW.
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