A recent announcement from HSE records nine deaths involving the UK waste and recycling industry since June 15, 2012. That is an appalling statistic, and HSE are sending “warnings” to the waste sector to improve safety performance.

The fatalities are:

1. June 15: employee crushed when operating forklift that overturned at a waste site in Towcester
2. June 19: employee crushed between two vehicles at a scrap metal site in Dudley
3. June 28: employee struck by a boom while working atop a skip at a skip-hire premises in Wolverhampton
4. July 25: self-employed person died after falling out of the bucket of an excavator at a skip-hire premises in Arundel
5. Aug. 7: employee crushed by a skip that fell on him at a skip-hire premises in Kempton Hardwick
6. Aug. 10: member of the public run over by a backing refuse collection vehicle in Glasgow
7. Aug. 17: employee run over by a wheeled loading shovel at a waste transfer site in Watford
8. Aug. 17: employee trapped in a waste compactor/baling machine at a recycling plant in Batley, Leeds
9. Sept. 5 member of the public found crushed in a refuse collection vehicle’s compacting mechanism in Wirral

Some of these, however regrettable, are not appropriate to lay at the feet of the waste sector and may not have been preventable no matter how stringent the precautions put in place.

However, there can be no doubt that the waste industries must work hard to sustain and improve safety standards. HSE also reported a small rise to 9 fatalities in 2010/11. Nobody can disagree that this is 9 too many deaths, and has now been spectacularly eclipsed by a summer of tragedies; every death or serious, possibly life changing, injury is a tragedy that stains the reputation of this sector. However, since HSE released the cumulative mortality statistics 2005 – 2001 (Table 1), several commentators remarked on the ‘deteriorating safety standard of the waste industries’ and ‘an alarming rise in deaths’. But is that correct?

• 2010/11 – 9 workers died
• 2009/10 – 3 workers died
• 2008/09 – 10 workers died
• 2007/08 – 6 workers died
• 2006/07 – 7 workers died
• 2005/06 – 12 workers died

Table 1 – Deaths in the waste and recycling sector

The rate of fatal injury stayed broadly the same, at 7.0 per 100,000 workers, over the past five years. Though there is no room for complacency, adverse reporting and additional criticism at this stage is no more appropriate than lauding industry-wide improvement in worker safety if next year the mortality rate falls to just 6 deaths. Though statistically just another point on a graph, that 33% reduction is still 6 bereaved families heartbroken at the death of a loved one. In reality, the changes are small and though each points one to an individual tragedy these small variations should not be construed as indicators of significant change in overall health and safety performance.

Statistics can be a useful tool, or misleading. Several trade journalists appear to have misconstrued this small numerical rise in annual mortality rate as a sign of worsening standards. News reports of the HSE data showing an increase in [all] workplace deaths of around 16% in the coalition government’s first year seem intent on presenting only bad news. With 171 deaths in 2010/11, a rate of 0.6 fatal injuries per 100,000 workers, few reports bother to mention that these data were being compared with the record low of 147 deaths in 2009/10. The overall trend remains downward. Based on a count of events that are fortunately still rare, these statistics are highly subject to chance variation from year to year and it is necessary to look only at trends over a number of years; any inference about changes in the safety performance based on single year-to-year comparison is inherent flawed and probably misleading.

In the agriculture sector which, along with construction, is traditionally the most dangerous in which to work, deaths fell from 39 last year to 34 in 2010/11.Others do not fare so well. The construction industry recorded 50 deaths among its workers – an increase of 22 per cent on last year’s total of 41 fatalities and 2.4 deaths per 100,000 workers (Table 2). Though this compares favourably with a 5 year fatality rate of 2.8 per 100,000 critics are already implying that the reduction in fatalities reflects more the shrinkage of that sector in these times of financial constraint rather than any real improvement. It is clear that the data might be interpreted in many ways, and can support just about any interpretation.

• In construction there were 50 fatal injuries, with a rate of 2.4 deaths per 100 000 workers. This compares to an average rate of 2.8 for the previous five years
• In agriculture there were 34 fatal injuries in 2010/11 with a corresponding rate of 8.0 deaths per 100 000 workers. This compares to a rate of 9.6 when an average of the previous five years is examined
• In manufacturing there were 27 fatal injuries, with a rate of 1.1 deaths per 100 000 workers (the same rate as the average for the previous five years)
• In the services sector there were 47 fatal injuries, with a rate of 0.2 deaths per 100 000 workers. (the same rate as the average for the previous five years)
• In the waste and recycling industry (categorised using SIC divisions 38 and 39) there were nine fatal injuries, with a rate of 8.7 deaths per 100 000 workers. This compares to an average rate of 7.0 for the previous five years

from: http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/fatals.htm

Table 2 – Worker fatalities by main industry, 2010/11

Though headline mortality rates are an obvious parameter they are not a particularly informative measure of health and safety performance. Overall, the injury rate has consistently fallen in this sector in recent years. Lost time injury rates may be helpful, though these do not readily indicate the severity or impact of an incident that may range from the relatively trivial to life-changing injury.  RIDDOR, though recently revised to record fewer trivial injuries, provides an invaluable record of safety standards across all sectors. A reportable incident includes a death or major injury, any accident which does not result in major injury but the injured person still has to take three or more days off their normal work to recover, a work related disease, a member of the public being injured as a result of work related activity and taken to hospital for treatment, or a dangerous occurrence, which does not result in a serious injury, but which could have done. However, this is not an all-embracing list and remains subject to sometimes widely variable interpretation with a tendency to under-reporting in order to maintain an acceptable accident record and avoid the scrutiny of HSE inspectors.

Detailed classification of reported incidents permits review of individual risk behaviours and targeting of specific safety interventions. Though various, sometimes conflicting, metrics can be applied it appears that the rates of all injuries, major injuries and over 3 day injuries have been relatively static or have fallen over both 5 and 10 year review periods. But how do we compare a traumatic amputation or mesothelioma with a sharps injury, or a road traffic accident with a debilitating back injury or occupational dermatitis? Figures show that the injury rate per 100,000 workers reached 2,614 in 2003/04, slowly declining over subsequent years to around 2,207 per 100,000 in 2007/08 with a total of 4,347 injuries and 196,920 employees. Though the waste and recycling sectors continue to endure an accident rate that is far higher that other commercial sectors, modest improvement continues to be seen and the number of fatalities continues to fall (graph), but is the industry really safer now than in previous years? Perhaps the waste and recycling industries can reward itself with a cautious pat on the back for efforts to improve safety standards. However, there must remain a stark warning that the overall injury rate remains unacceptably high and 9 fatalities is 9 too many.

 Where does that leave the waste sector in terms of fatal accident statistics. Hard as it may sound, these latest update figures from HSE may represent a blip, a very unfortunate blip, that still maintains an overall downward trend. Action is required to prevent further tragedies, but it is difficult to castigate the industry for an increase in fatalities on the basis only of this sudden and unexpected rise.

Unfortunately, morality data is easy to record, via RIDDOR, and though the statutory intervention of the Police and HSE. Morbidity data is a much more useful marker of the safety standards across the waste sector. It can be stratified by accident type, by waste sector, by activity and location etc, and provides an invaluable measure of overall safety performance. Sadly, revisions to RIDDOR reduce the likelihood of data capture by changing 3 day injury recording to 7 day, and by the reluctance of employers to document even major injuries for fear of the negative impact and possibility of unwanted, but often avoidable, regulatory scrutiny.

Only when those attitudes are overcome can meaningful morbidity statistics be collected that will lead to the identification of particular and avoidable risks, driving improvement in worker safety right across the waste sector.