UK Waste Industry Health & Safety problems and ATEX and DSEAR in context
The idea 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/resource management industry has been rated 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 in commissioned by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in 2004 given all those in the industry with some highly worrying information on just how poor the performance of the industry has been in the recent past.
The activities carried out within the Waste Management Industry are more extensive than in most industries.
The Bomel report quoted the incidence of serious injuries 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 many in the industry to created a complete rethink on training in health and safety, to re-double efforts to make H&S a chairman to operative level responsibility and to embed the philosophy throughout these businesses.
Until now the raising of the status of H&S has not been at a sufficient pace and it hasn't resulted in enough real change sufficiently widely across the industry.
Why do I say this?
I can be authoritative because in February 2005 month a safety alert released by the HSE made it clear that there have been no less than nine work related deaths in the waste and recycling industries in a recent approximately 8 week time span.
Accurate and credible data are few and far between in this sector, but while we have no reason to disbelieve in these figures it is worth looking at them in more detail.
It seems that the report and the safety alert are largely based upon accidents which include operatives being hit by refuse collection vehicles (RCVs) or cars as the most common workplace transport accident. These are road traffic accidents that are waste-related. Many of these incidents may or may not be related to the industries performance, in the final analysis household and industrial waste collection involves the hazardous activity of vehicles operating in busy neighbourhoods.
A calculation of this activity shows that there are lot of these vehicles around daily and would be around about 4000 Refuse Collection Vehicles on the roads of the UK during every weekday and most Saturdays, and it is a logical outcome shown by the statistics 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 beliittle the tragic circumstances and the untold grief caused that anyone 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 industry that are by their nature very high risk. This may be due to the type of waste itself, storage emissions, its hazards necesitated in treatment, or the plant required to transport and process it.
All the companies that count in the waste management industry are now actively working to improve their safety record. There, is 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 an important part of this jigsaw.
The 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.
Enviros consulting provides an ATEX and DSEAR review and risk assessment service. We train site supervisors in ATEX and DSEAR compliance with these regulations, and provide Explosion Protection documents as required by this law. For all waste management facility operators: You need to completed your ATEX and DSEAR compliance NOW urgently if it has not yet been completed.
The final implementation date was end of June 2006. See this web site for more ATEX compliance information.
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