Archive for February, 2015

Skip hire – healthy and safety information your business should know about

Skip hire is the act of talking to a waste disposal company, such as Map Waste Skip Hire and renting a skip, or maxi skip, where you can put large amounts of waste that you may have from an industrial or building project. After some days, the company will then come and take the skip away, to dispose of its contents properly.

maxi-skips

There are, of course, some healthy and safety hazards associated with this. In fact, the number one cause of injuries in the waste management industry is a lack of proper care with vehicle transfers. Therefore, safety considerations are extremely important.

Loaded skips and what to consider

Loaded skips should never be stacked on top of each other, as the stack could easily collapse and, at the very least, make a very large mess. This is true both for skips in yards or outside of buildings and for the vehicles which transfer skips to the landfills.

VOSA (Vehicle Operator Safety Agency) also states that, although empty skips can be stacked, they will be regarded as a safety risk if there is a stack of three or more which are not properly secured by tethers This is mainly only true for the transport vehicles. In transfer stations or yards the safe height of an empty skip stack is mainly determined by its general stability, which can be affected by a number of factors, including what kind of tethers are used (ropes, chains, etc), how easy it is for workers to access the tethers, and the condition of the ground.

Tipping hooks and other issues

Another potential problem is if the tipping hooks on a skip are falsely engaged. If the hooks become snagged on the base plates, it is almost impossible for the operator to see, and the process itself will seem as though the hooks have correctly engaged until the skip is tipped far enough forwards. Then the unrestrained skip will swing wildly out the back of the lorry, potentially causing the lorry to tip backwards. This is usually only caused when the base plates are protruding too far forwards, and skips should be regularly examined to make sure that this is not an issue.

These are only a few of the potential safety hazards that you could encounter while operating a skip. There are many others that you should be aware of if you do operate a skip. To learn about more potential safety hazards, please go to http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/waste09.pdf.