Waste management firm fined after driver killed at Northamptonshire landfill site

Date:

24 May 2010

Release No:

HSE/EM/022/10

A waste management and recycling company has been fined after a driver was killed at a Northamptonshire landfill site.

SITA UK Limited was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) following the death of Gary Carter, 32, at the Cranford landfill site on 4 January 2007.

The company, of Grenfell Road, Maidenhead, Berkshire, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and was fined £210,000 and ordered to pay full costs of £38,000.

Northampton Crown Court heard that Mr Carter, of Kidwelly, Carmarthenshire, arrived at the site to empty his refuse lorry and, like all the lorries emptying at the site that day, had to be assisted onto and off the tipping area due to the wet weather and soft ground conditions on the site.

After his lorry was towed to the tipping area by a bulldozer, Mr Carter discharged only part of his load. To shed the rest he had to move forward but his lorry had become too bogged down in soft ground.

The driver of the compactor, which was spreading the rubbish behind his lorry, radioed to him to say he would drive up behind Mr Carter's lorry and push it forward with his own vehicle.

At the same time the bulldozer reversed up to the front of Mr Carter's lorry to give him a tow. Both tried to help Mr Carter move, but without communicating with each other. When the compactor started to push the lorry forward, Mr Carter was attaching a tow rope from the bulldozer to the front of his lorry and was crushed to death between his lorry and back of the bulldozer.

He died at the scene.

The court heard from the prosecution that new working arrangements had been introduced a few days before the accident without having been properly risk assessed. Further, that SITA had not defined the supervisory roles for their staff on the site and that site rules on pushing lorries were ambiguous.

HSE Inspector Roy Bush said: "Every company has a legal responsibility to take care of people working on their site, whether they are employed by them or not.

"All companies are required to assess risks, eliminate them where possible and provide proper control measures to deal with the risks that remain. Having clear site rules that deal with the significant risks on site and making sure staff understand them and stick to them is absolutely vital if people on sites like this are to be protected from serious injury and even death.

"Sadly, in this case, the prosecution shows that the company did not take these steps, with tragic consequences for Mr Carter and his family."

Notes to editors

1. The Health and Safety Executive is Britain's national regulator for workplace health and safety. It aims to reduce work-related death, injury and ill health. It does so through research, information and advice; promoting training; new or revised regulations and codes of practice; and working with local authority partners by inspection, investigation and enforcement. www.hse.gov.uk
2. Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 states "It shall be the duty of every employer to conduct his undertaking in such a way as to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons not in his employment who may be affected thereby are not thereby exposed to risks to their health or safety".
3. Information and advice to help improve health and safety in the waste management and recycling industry. Can be found on the HSE website at www.hse.gov.uk/waste/index.htm

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