Health, Safety & Quality Consultancy
A Sheffield teenager with a temporary job at a major glass recycling firm in West Yorkshire had his arm crushed when it was drawn into the unguarded danger zone of a machine, a court has heard.
The 18 year old Sheffield worker, who was employed by a local staffing agency, had been working as a temp at a glass recycling company in Pontefract, for varying periods over some 6 months.
Wakefield Magistrates were told he had been asked by a supervisor to clean a machine used to separate glass from waster material at the Company’s site on 15 June 2012. The machine wasrunning and his left hand and arm was drawn in between a rotating metal drum and a moving conveyor belt.
The teenager suffered a fractured upper arm. Surgeons needed to use bone from his hip and metal rods to rebuild his arm.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigated and found the machine had been totally unguarded, providing ready access by workers to dangerous moving parts. In addition the Company had no work system to make sure the machine was isolated and safely locked off before cleaning was undertaken.
HSE told the court that rather than fitting an effective guard enclosing the dangerous parts of the machine, the company relied on employees to carry out cleaning carefully to avoid contact with the moving parts.
The Company was fined £5,000 and ordered to pay £3,638 in full costs after admitting a breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.