Major UK waste and recycling firms are to be the target of “central interventions” by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in a bid to address the sector’s appalling health and safety record.
HSE says it is acting after its first targeted waste programme “arrested the rising accident rate and brought about a small reduction” but adds “the accident rate is still high (typically 4 times the all industry average for all injuries to workers and typically 9 times the all industry average for fatal injuries to workers).”
It says the interventions will “be undertaken to assess the safety management systems of national waste management and recycling companies who undertake waste and recycling collection services,” with the following firms targeted: Biffa Waste Management Limited; European Metal Recycling Limited; Enterprise Limited; May Guerney Recycling (aka ECT Recycling); SERCO Limited; Shanks Waste Management Limited; Sita UK Limited; Veolia Environmental Services Limited; Verdant Group plc; and Viridor Waste Management Limited.
A number of these firms have recent prosecutions for serious safety breaches.
The union GMB has campaigned for manslaughter charges to be brought in the case of member Dennis Krauesslar, 59, who was killed on 10 September 2007 by a mechanical digger when depositing grass cuttings at Biffa’s Newbury recycling centre. Biffa pleaded guilty to related safety charges in February 2010.
Veolia was fined £100,000 and ordered to pay £22,000 costs at Birmingham Crown Court in July 2009 for a health and safety breach that led to a worker being seriously injured in a fall. In February 2010, the company, which says it is the UK’s leading waste and recycling firm and which parades its environmental and safety credentials, was fined £130,000 after a worker was killed when a 1,100-litre recycling bin fell on his head.
And European Metal Recycling Ltd was fined £2,500 and £2,454 costs in October 2008 after an agency worker suffered serious injuries in a fall from a lorry.
An HSE Sector Information Minute (SIM), spelling out the purpose and methods of the interventions, notes: “If examination of the overall safety management system through the topics inspected provides (in the inspectors judgement) sufficient evidence to indicate a breach of legislation, then the need for any enforcement action should be considered in accordance with the Enforcement Management Model (EMM) and normal operational considerations should apply.”
It adds that inspectors should consider “director leadership” and “worker engagement” in the firms.
3 Comments
I’ll believe that when I see it
My son was killed in April 2005 by his empoloyer in the waste recycling industry,At the INquest the director said they didn’t bother with Written risk assessments because he considered all his workers to be illiterate,he tried to pass off someone else’s H&S policy
document as his own,tried to produce false training records and yet the HSE say there is not enough evidence to charge him personally under section 37 of HASAWA ‘just the company with section 2 and 3.An employee has already pleaded guilty to section 7(should have been manslaughter) 5 years on we still await the trial
HSE bend over backwards to be nice to these killer companies,the irony of this one is the parent company makes their profit from selling protective clothing and safety gear advising other companies as to what they should buy to keep their workers safe,you couldn’t make it up
What will they do if they find any of these employers still not complying? Slap their wrists and plead with them to try to do better. I shouldn’t imagine the companies will be quaking in their boots It’s a sick joke
Nobody gives a damn in UK
UK in developping countries ,(african asian countries ) is regarded as heaven ,what i red below is unbelevable ,it is said that safe jobs are found everywhere in UK how fare will it be true for a mother to los a son in recycling indutries ?HSE implementation passes to be a global problem the greatest of the 21th century let us join hands and takle it
I am the widow of Dennis Krauesslar ., Dennis went to the Biffa operated site to empty a few bags of garden rubbish. He never came back home. He was crushed to death by an enormous shovel loader at Pinchington Lane Recycling Centre Newbury , on 10th Sept 2007.
My life , and that of our daughter ( aged 17 at the time of his death ) has been destroyed forever, and subsequently my simple belief in justice has been smashed .
Biffa were fined £280,000 for not complying with Health & Safety procedures , in 2010 – such a small sum to a huge company . It would be like fining an ordinary person a fiver. This money goes back to the government I believe via Health & Safety.
I feel so angry & bitter and destroyed. I have to live without my wonderful husband, and forever “seeing” his body as I identified him. The sheer horror haunts me daily.
Biffa have never apologised to the family, even when they pleaded guilty in Reading Crown Court. I sat in the back of the Court , ignored.
I have needlessly lost my wonderful husband, watch our daughter suffering ever day: we have lost our home, and feel a great sense of injustice. How much longer can big companies continue to do this ? Forever I should think , with “British Justice “.