'Best Practice' Guidance on Health and Safety for the Waste Industry

This page refers to United Kingdom health and safety guidance, but will be of relevance to other countries.

The Health and Safety Executive has recently targeted the waste and recycling industry due to an increased number of fatal and serious accidents that have occurred during collection and management of
municipal waste (especially in recycling activities).

An HSE safety alert was issued in March 2006 after 9 deaths occurred in the industry in the first 8 weeks of this year. Notably, the HSE has launched a 3 year intervention with the waste industry that will involve inspections of both private companies and local authorities to assess waste activities.

An extremely useful checklist is published on the HSE waste website listing those points that an inspector will look for. To view the checklist, click here http://www.hse.gov.uk/waste/checklist.doc

This provides the industry with a useful audit tool ahead of any inspection.