Risk, Health and Safety Information

Recycling company fined after injury on Croydon site

A recycling company has been ordered to pay a £20,000 fine by the end of the week for safety failings on a waste transfer site in Croydon after an overseas student on shift work fell four metres through a chute.

Mr Priyank Malik, 22, from India, a Business Studies student at Westminster Academy who was living in Uxbridge, was working part-time on the waste site to support himself through a post-graduate diploma.

He was injured when he fell through a chute into a waste-storage bay at the Country Waste Management site on Beddington Lane, Croydon on 15 April 2011.
Although Mr Malik suffered only minor injuries, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which investigated, said that Country Waste Management failed to put measures in place to protect their employees and others working at height.
Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard today (10 Oct) that One51 Recycling ES UK (South) Limited, trading as Country Waste Management, had received advice in 2010 from HSE about its responsibility to control the risks of working at height.

After Mr Malik’s incident, HSE inspectors served an Improvement Notice on the company requiring it to take sufficient measures to safeguard workers from falls from height.

Inspectors say that if the company had applied a risk-based approach, identifying hazards, assessing risks and implementing robust controls to protect employees and others at the site, Mr Malik's accident could have been avoided and others at the site would not have been exposed to the risk of injury from falls.

One51 Recycling ES UK (South) Limited, of the Future Industrial Services Limited, Image Park, Acornfield Road, Kirby, Merseyside, pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. The firm was fined £20,000 and ordered to pay £6,485 in costs by the end of the week.

After the hearing, HSE Inspector Clare Hawkes said:

“The failure to take a systematic, risk-based approach to managing health and safety led to an employee’s fall of four metres that could have led to far more serious and even fatal injuries.

“The company should have taken action to stamp out practices like crossing the openings of chutes and walking on top of loaded containers. If work at height cannot be avoided then physical low cost and simple measures should be taken, such as erecting barriers or suitable edge protection to prevent falls from open edges. Employers should have clear site rules and ensure that they are enforced.”