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Waste firm fined £3m after two fatal incidents
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigated the deaths and subsequently prosecuted the waste firm.
A 63-year-old HGV driver died while collecting wastepaper bales at the company’s site. He was working with an employee who was using a forklift truck to load his lorry with the bales. The HSE said that while loading a fourth row, some bales in the third row were dislodged and fell from the vehicle, fatally crushing the driver. Each bale weighed at least 820kg. An HSE investigation found it was not custom and practice for bales to be loaded onto lorries by forklift truck operators at the same time the lorry driver was strapping bales which had previously been loaded onto the lorry flatbed. Systems were in place for drivers to remain within their cabs, or in some other safe location away from the loading activity, but this was not adhered to at the time of the incident.
In the second incident an agency driver died while loading skips onto his lorry. The skips were not compatible as they were of different dimensions and the HSE said they fell at an angle onto the back of the lorry. The deceased got onto the lorry bed to rectify the situation, but the skips overbalanced and fatally struck him. An HSE investigation into this incident found the company had failed to carry out a suitable and sufficient risk assessment into skip operations meaning that safe systems of work and appropriate training were not implemented, and skips were not maintained in an efficient state.
The deceased’s mother said in a statement presented to the court: “Every single night as soon as I close my eyes, I see him lying crushed underneath the skip dead or dying. When we arrived at the scene we were held back by the police and so I couldn’t get close to him and couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive. That image is what I see every single night when I close my eyes and every single morning before I open my eyes. I shouted out to him that we were there. I will never know if he heard that or not.”
The company pleaded guilty at Court to breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act following both incidents and was fined £1m for the first incident and £2m for the second incident. Senior enforcement lawyer at the HSE, said: “These were two men at different stages of their lives, but the grief and pain across both families is devastating. Both deaths were avoidable. More needs to be done to make the use of vehicles on waste and recycling sites safer.”
A West Midlands engineering company and its managing director have been fined for failing to protect their workers from welding fumes.
They were prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) following an inspection of the company’s former site. HSE inspectors found the company had failed to put in place appropriate precautions to control the exposure of mild steel welding fumes from metal inert gas (MIG) welding taking place at the site.
A subsequent investigation found the company had initially complied with two Improvement Notices. The notices required the company to make improvements to its MIG welding process. However, the company failed to sustain its compliance with the notices meaning there was an inadequate control of exposure to welding fumes. HSE said that the company could have sustained compliance with the notices by ensuring that industry standard controls for the welding were provided and maintained at the site. These controls would have likely included a local exhaust ventilation (LEV) and respiratory protective equipment (RPE).
The company pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 7(1) of the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002. The company was fined £20,000 and ordered to pay £3,896.30 in costs.
The Managing Director pleaded guilty to breaching Section 37(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. He was fined £2,000 at Wolverhampton Magistrates’ Court on 13 September 2023.
HSE Inspector said: “There are clear dangers from welding fumes – remaining compliant with the law is not something that can tail off over time. This case shows prosecution will be considered if that happens.”