Waste firm fined over employee fall
08/04/2010
A waste management firm in the West Midlands has been fined £12,000 after a worker was seriously injured in a three-metre fall, narrowly missing a crushing machine.
AB Waste Management Ltd was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive and ordered to pay £1,836 in costs after pleading guilty to breaching Regulation 5 of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998.
Walsall & Aldridge Magistrates' Court heard how, on 16 June 2009, the man was on just his second day working at the firm's Junction Works site on Cemetery Road, Darlaston, when a guard rail failed on a crushing machine he was cleaning.
The victim suffered a broken spine in two places, and several cuts to his head that required skin grafts.
HSE inspector Gardabil Singh Tiwana said: "The worker was seriously let down by his employers, who failed to maintain the safety measures that were supposed to protect him. The employee could easily have been killed if he'd fallen into the crushing machine when it was in operation.
"It's all very well installing a guard rail and other precautions, but if they're not maintained and repaired properly then they are useless."
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