Health and Safety
Executive / Commission
Paper industry
The case studies in this section are real incidents with real consequences for those involved. The case studies cover the main causes of injury and occupational ill health in the paper industry and include:
Two operators had been unloading a full reel (weighing approximately 2.5 tonnes) from the lowered back stand. One operator subsequently collapsed with back pain. He was off work for 2 months (the injured person had suffered from a back problem for several years).
An operator was carrying reject paper from a guillotine to the conveyor feeding the pulper (a regular task carried out over a distance of about 30 meters), the weight of the paper was variable. He sustained a hernia which required surgical treatment (he was susceptible to these and had suffered with this condition intermittently during the 25 years he had worked for the mill).
A reel packing worker sustained a back injury while pushing a reel of paper. Reels of paper are ejected from a conveyor system to the rewinder for processing. There had been a fault on the rewinder and a backlog of reels had built up in the immediate area. The injured person was moving the reels about trying to make space for the backlog. He felt a pain in his lower back and after continuing to work for a short time was sent home with back pain.
Tail feeding - An operator suffered major injuries when he was drawn between the drum and shell reel as he was manually tail feeding on a papermaking machine.
An experienced machine operator was injured when his hand was taken into the nip at a roll of the papermaking machine. He was trying to remove a piece of debris from the roll.
Conveyor accident - an operator broke his forearm when he fell from an elevated conveyor, attempting to clear a blockage caused by wet bales.
Two labourers (who had worked for the company for about a week) were injured, one fatally, the other critically, in a large horizontal baling machine. The young inexperienced workers fell into the baling chamber from the top of the feed conveyor whilst clearing a blockage in the feed. The top flap (pre-press flap) of the chamber had operated, crushing them onto the paper in the chamber. Screams were heard and the machine was switched off before the horizontal ram operated. Access was most probably gained via the conveyor and they had apparently operated the E stop on the conveyor assuming, incorrectly, that the baler was also isolated.
A driver employed by a road transport company was struck by a forklift truck as he walked through the lorry loading and parking area of a large mill. The forklift truck driver was not expecting to find a pedestrian in the area. Access procedures were not clear and high visibility clothing was not issued to visitors to the area.
An employee was struck from behind by a reversing lift truck as he walked through a reel storage area. Several trucks operated in the area taking reels to storage. Stacked reels restricted visibility.