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Health and Safety in the Waste Management Industry
ESA’s Members are committed to ensuring the highest levels of health and safety for employees and the public. In 2005 the HSE launched a three-year initiative to focus on health and safety performance in the collection and transport of municipal solid waste and ESA is working closely with the HSE to ensure the initiative is successful.
ESA Accident Reduction Charter
ESA, in conjunction with the HSE, launched an Accident Reduction Charter in 2004. The Charter sets challenging targets for the waste management industry, including:
- to reduce the incidence rate of RIDDOR reportable accidents by 10% per year until 2007; and
- to eliminate fatalities by the end of that period.
ESA Strategy for Health and Safety
In April 2006, ESA published the waste management industry’s first strategy for Health and Safety. This sets out the industry’s health and safety goals, the activities that will be required to meet them and a clear timetable for delivery over the next two years.
Every year ESA Members report RIDDOR accident figures and analysis of these figures has helped to identify the key areas of concern in terms of the numbers or severity of accidents. The Strategy focuses on slips, trips and falls, manual handling and impact incidents as these incidents make up the majority of incidents reported by ESA Members. The Strategy also targets machinery safety as accidents associated with plant and machinery can result in serious injuries.
The HSE welcomed the publication of the strategy which is available on ESA’s web site: http://www.esauk.org/ESA_H&S_strategy.pdf
Health and Safety events
ESA arranged a number of health and safety events to spread good practice and advice on health and safety in May and June 2006. The programme and presentations for these events are available on ESA's web site.
1. Vehicle Health and Safety
31 May 2006
2. Waste and Resource Management Industry: Healthy & Safe
13 June 2006, Torbay
2. Improving health and safety performance in the waste management sector
28 June 2006, London
Guidance and practical advice
HSE advice for waste management companies
The HSE has published health and safety advice for operators in the waste management industry on a range of subjects, including:
- waste/recycling collection operations in the street, including reversing;
- Public risk: Street waste/ recycling collection operations;
- Earth moving vehicles on Landfill Sites;
- Bioaerosols; and
- Totting (Tatting) or Sorting Waste and Recyclables by hand in association with mechanical shovels
This information is available at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/waste/issues.htm#advice
WISH Forum
ESA is an active member of the Waste Industry Safety and Health (WISH) Forum and has helped produce a number of guidance documents, including:
Waste industry safety and health: Reducing the risks
http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg359.pdf
Safe transport in waste and recycling facilities
http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/web/wastetransport.pdf
Waste and Recycling Vehicles in Street Collection
http://www.hse.gov.uk/waste/streetcollection.pdf
Operating Civic Amenity sites safely
http://www.hse.gov.uk/waste/civicamenity.pdf
Safe use of skip loaders - Advice for operators
http://www.hsebooks.com/Books/product/bookmark.asp?pub=0717622169
Managing orphaned compressed gas cylinders
http://www.hse.gov.uk/waste/gascylinders.pdf
Green waste collection – health issues
http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/web10.pdf
Further information is available from
ESA's Health & Safety web site
WISH Forum web site
HSE waste management web site
July 2006
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