HSE to repeat waste service safety checks

In a long-overdue move, the depth and extent of which has yet properly to be seen, HSE is to carry on with – or is that pick up the threads of? – its programme of local authority waste management services inspections after a report found that 14% of councils were ‘non-compliant’.

http://www.mrw.co.uk/news/hse-to-repeat-waste-service-safety-checks/

There is much to be done as standards of safety, including hygiene and biological safety matters, have slipped noticeably as margins are sliced ever thiner.

Regrettably, it is those important and not insubstantial but diffuse hygiene and waste management activities of litter picking, clinical and hygiene waste services areas and cleaning in public lavatories, Local Authority care homes, hostels etc that are unlikely to be considered for inspection. Perhaps HSE is simply unaware that these activities exist, or unaware of their impact. Most likely, it is simply the intention to aim for the low hanging fruit and concentrate of routing kerbside collections, recycling services etc, since this might deliver a bigger impact on limited funding.

But accidents and near misses continue to happen, and these cannot be overlooked, intentionally or otherwise, by HSE, by the Environment Agency and Environmental Health Officers. These are dangerous jobs, and the health & safety of employees should be paramount. If the regulators don’t make an effort, its hard to see how the employers might be encouraged to do so.

 

 

 

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