Inspectors from the HSE visited the site of Recycling Material Supplies Limited on Ashleigh Commercial Estate, Westmoor Street on 11th August 2022. When they arrived, the inspectors observed various vehicles, including tipper lorries and loading shovels being driven freely around the site. The pedestrian entrance was chained and padlocked, with pedestrians forced to use the vehicle entrance route used by lorries and other vehicles. There was no effective segregation by designated pedestrian routes or crossing points.
Health and safety legislation requires workplaces to be organised so that pedestrians and vehicles can circulate safely. Where large vehicles must reverse, employers must consider additional precautions and implement them where appropriate to protect those working nearby.
Although the company had a visual traffic plan, it was not visible to staff or visitors and was out of date because the site configuration had changed since it was produced, meaning it did not address key pedestrian movements such as access across the yard to toilets.
Inspectors also found skips unsafely stacked, with some of them deformed, adding to the instability. The height of the stack – which was three-high in places – also increased the likelihood of collapse or falling. The skips were also stacked in an area regularly accessed by workers, on foot or in vehicles, placing them at great risk of them falling.
The concerns led to a further visit 11 days later, after a number of improvement notices were served. These required the company to take action within a specified timescale to remedy health and safety breaches of law. The subsequent HSE investigation found that the company had previously been the subject of enforcement action, with prohibition notices served in 2019 in relation to stockpiling and risks of collapse.
Recycled Material Supplies Limited, Ashleigh Commercial Estate, Westmoor Street, London, failed to fulfil duties under Section 2 and Section 3 of the Act by putting employees, agency workers and other persons on site at risk of death and/or serious personal injury and pleased guilty of two offences under s33(1)(a) of the Act. The company was fined £167,000 and was ordered to pay £16,195 costs.
HSE enforcement lawyer Rebecca Schwartz said: “This company put the lives of its workers at danger in a number of ways. Given the size and weight of skips, the potential consequences of any collapse were potentially catastrophic. The waste and recycling industry has a poor safety record and it is only due to sheer good fortune that nobody was seriously injured or killed. The fact this company had previously been made aware of its legal duties, makes this case the more stark. We take these failures seriously and will hold those to account who fail to keep their workers and other people safe.”
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