Up until 2021/22, the fatal injury rate of our sector was 4.61 per 100,000 workers with a 5-year rolling average fatality rate of 5, which is around 11 times higher than all industry rates.
It is unfortunate, therefore, that despite the efforts of the sector to drive sustained improvements in health and safety performance, we appear to have performed a significant U-turn when it comes to fatalities, given there have been 8 incidents so far for 2023/24. Whilst most of these are still under investigation by the HSE, I am aware of the scenarios surrounding the individual incidents. However, there are no significant patterns or trends given the variety of incidents and sites involved.
There has been significant focus on vehicle and machinery safety features on Refuse Collection Vehicles, both from the HSE and manufacturers following the horrific incident at Coventry City Council in early 2023 when an operative was dragged into the hopper and fatally crushed.
Further to the Coventry fatality, the British Standards Institution (BSI) document relating to refuse collection vehicle safety requirements (BS EN 1501 – Refuse collection vehicles. General requirements and safety requirements) has faced some scrutiny. More specifically, Part 5 of the document, which relates to lifting devices for refuse collection vehicles has been under review since the incident occurred.
The Office of Public Standards and Safety (OPSS) have now issued a safety notice concerning EN 1501 part 5 confirming that the standard does NOT meet the essential health and safety requirements for the standard itself:
“EN 1501-5:2021 Refuse collection vehicles – General requirements and safety requirements – Part 5: Lifting devices for refuse collection vehicles. Restriction: The application of subclauses 5.10.1, 5.12.5 and 5.14 do not confer a presumption of conformity to the essential health and safety requirements 1.2.1 of Schedule 2, Part 1 (Annex I) to S.I. 2008/1597.”
In particular, the standard does not prevent reasonably foreseeable human error leading to hazardous situations, through inadvertent operation of the lifting mechanism because of workers or members of the public, leaning, reaching, or becoming entangled in the lifting mechanism during foreseeable tasks such as clearing spilt material or manually loading oversized refuse, whilst in automatic mode.
In addition, OPSS have issued a safety alert for the Terberg OmniDEKA hydraulic bin lift with sonar sensor N1 manufactured between 2016 and 2023, attributing a high risk level to this equipment when used in automatic mode.
WISH, with the support of the HSE, have published a new INFO sheet (INFO 26) to assist operators, vehicle purchasers and manufacturers to understand what actions they need to take to ensure the safety in use of bin lifts in automatic mode.
