RECYCLA-Plas has been fined $50,000 over an incident which resulted in the amputation of two of a 15-year-old employee’s toes.
The recycling company was found guilty of failing to provide a safe workplace, and by that failure, causing serious harm to a worker.
The incident occurred in September 2006, when an employee was using a baling machine which uses a slow-moving hydraulic ram to compress plastic product.
The machine had three doors – an input door, a side door and an output door. When the input door was open the hydraulic ram could not operate, but the ram could still operate to eject bales when the output door was open.
The side door could be opened to allow the compressed bales to be strapped, and the hydraulic ram could move in either direction when this door was open.
Once a bale was strapped, the side door could not be fully closed until the bale was ejected through the output door.
The employees had been instructed to close the side door as far as possible after strapping the bale, and once the bale was ejected, to close the door fully before retracting the ram.
The employee who was injured was standing by the side door while the ram was retracted. The side door had not been closed.
As the ram retracted past the side door, the man’s right foot was crushed between the edge of the baler box and the ram.
Two of the man’s middle toes were crushed and had to be surgically amputated.
According to WorkSafe WA, anyone in control of a workplace with machinery with hazardous moving parts need to ensure adequate machine guards are in place.
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