The Environmental Services Association (ESA), has today (16 February) launched a new health and safety report, which looks at what the ESA is calling “contrasting performance” across the industry.
ESA’s policy advisor, Stephen Freeland says the Health & Safety Executive’s (HSE) injury statistics for the waste industry continue to make for rather “sobering reading”.
“What is perhaps less obvious from analysis of these statistics is the wide variation that exists within the waste industry,” he says, “with some elements clearly performing better than others.
“ESA Members have achieved a significant reduction in injuries over recent years and our injury rate now stands at 577 (per 100,000 employees), which is three times lower than the injury rate reported by HSE for the waste industry as a whole (1801).
“ESA’s new health and safety report aims to bring this contrasting performance to the fore and offers a number of recommendations to ensure resources are targeted, and best practice widely disseminated, to ensure that everyone in the industry is working to the same high standards.”
“ESA’s new health and safety report aims to bring this contrasting performance to the fore and offers a number of recommendations to ensure resources are targeted, and best practice widely disseminated, to ensure that everyone in the industry is working to the same high standards.”
Recent HSE statistics revealed fatalities in the waste and recycling sector to be around 15 times higher than the all-UK industry average, with 39 worker fatalities recorded since 2012.
The collection of waste from the kerbside is perhaps one of the most high-risk aspects of all the industry’s activities, the report finds.
ESA’s data reveals that such activities accounts for nearly half of all injuries, with slips, trips and falls (from working in and around refuse collection vehicles) and manual handling injuries (when moving heavy waste containers for uplift) accounting for most injuries.
Workers are also exposed on a daily basis to the inherent hazards and risks of working on the public highway. Factors such as these have resulted in a stubbornly high injury rate for the waste and recycling industry.
The sheer diversity within the waste management industry, arguably one of the most diverse of all the UK’s industrial sectors, perhaps helps to explain why the health and safety record of the waste industry continues to lag some way behind that of other sectors, the ESA says.
ESA Recommendations:
- HSE should consider disaggregating private and public-sector injury statistics to allow for more meaningful comparison and for resources to be more effectively targeted on areas of greatest risk.
- The right KPIs should be adopted to ensure that health and safety remains at the centre of service delivery
- Improve representation and engagement of all parts of the sector with the WISH Forum
- HSE should consider extending its NLI programme to include a broader range of organisations and should share its findings more widely.
