Increase your waste and recycling sector control measures with Zonr
The waste and recycling sector is a critical part of our economy and plays a crucial role in ensuring a sustainably led future. However, it is also a sector that is fraught with danger and risks. From hazardous waste to workplace accidents, the waste and recycling sector presents a significant challenge for workers and businesses when it comes to safety.
As with any large-scale waste operation, the use of heavy plant machinery and vehicles alongside operatives and ground workers, will always present a safety risk. No site, even with the highest health and safety standards and best practices is 100% free from danger. In fact, between 2017 and 2021, the waste and recycling industry had the highest rate of fatal injuries per year – with 70% of all fatalities linked to workers being struck by vehicles or through contact with moving machinery.
What The Report Said
In a report from the HSE in 2022, they highlighted the increased dangers associated with the waste and recycling sector – between 2017/18 and 2020/21, the waste sector recorded an average of five fatal injuries per year, representing 4.58 fatal injuries per 100,000 workers, and between 2015-2021 there was an estimated 3,000 workers each year who sustained an injury at work.
The HSE outlined: “The waste and recycling sector has an elevated rate of fatal injury [between 2017/18 and 2020/21].” The fatal injury rate (4.61 per 100,000 workers) is around 11 times higher than all industry rate.
The most common cause of injury or fatality was a worker being struck by a moving vehicle with 37% of all confirmed fatalities. Second was contact with moving machinery at 33%.
Although existing control methods such as physical barriers, warning signs and correct health and safety training for workers are already in place, they are never 100% effective due to human error, on-site distractions, and other mitigating circumstances.
So, what can be done to increase the control measures already in place to help make the industry even safer and reduce the number of injuries and fatalities?
How Zonr can help increase control measures
One way to that you can increase your safety measures is to implement
a plant proximity solution. A proximity
solution provides dynamic virtual barriers intended to warn workers and plant
operators of any incursion into defined safety exclusion zones and help avoid
worker/vehicle/machinery related deaths and injuries.
One of the best on the market is the Zonr Plant Proximity
Solution. Zonr creates virtual safety exclusion zones that warn your workers when they’re getting too close to dangerous or moving equipment. The Zonr system creates a virtual barrier around anything you attach a sensor to, using
UWB technology (the same technology found in an Apple Tag). This allows workers and plant operators to have an extra layer of safety protection while on site.
If a worker enters the designated exclusion zone, they are alerted via a vibrating tag on their arm as well as an audible alarm, while at the same time the machine/vehicle operator is also alerted by an audible alarm and a flashing red light from the base unit.
Zonr can be installed and set up in less time than it takes to make a cup of tea and, thanks to its wireless design and easily configurable exclusion zones, can be moved between machines/vehicles as and when needed.
So why wait until it is to late, book a meeting with us today below and find out how we can increase your control measures quickly.
- HSE Report: The Health and Safety Executive
- The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is Britain’s national regulator for workplace health and safety. We prevent work-related death, injury and ill health through regulatory actions that range from influencing behaviours across whole industry sectors through to targeted interventions on individual businesses. These activities are supported by globally recognised scientific expertise.
