Waste firm fined £270k following machinery cleaning incident

Stonegrave Aggregates, part of the Ashcourt Group, was sentenced at Teesside Crown Court after pleading guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.

The company was also ordered to pay full costs of £15,637.

Employee sustained multiple injuries

The court heard that on 24 March 2023, the worker had been cleaning a waste picking line at the company’s Aycliffe Quarry site in Aycliffe Village when the machinery was accidentally switched on.

The incident occurred after a senior supervisor mistakenly restarted the line, believing that the worker inside the machinery was a colleague wearing similar clothing nearby.

The employee sustained a fractured shoulder, torn ligaments and a broken finger as a result of the incident.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that the company had failed to ensure an effective isolation procedure was in place during cleaning operations.

The case was prosecuted by HSE Enforcement Lawyer Karen Park, supported by Paralegal Officer Rebecca Foreman.

Following the hearing, HSE inspector Darian Dundas said: “Effective monitoring, auditing and review of isolation systems is essential to demonstrate that they are working and controlling risk.

“Incidents like this can and should be prevented by following robust lock-off procedures.”

Third incident at site

The HSE investigation also noted that this was not the first serious incident at the site.

In December 2015, one worker was killed and another suffered “life-changing” injuries on a separate waste sorting line following similar failures to apply proper isolation and lock-off procedures.

HSE stressed that safe isolation and lock-off procedures are vital when maintenance or cleaning work is carried out on machinery.

Employers are required to ensure all equipment is properly isolated from power sources and that systems are monitored and reviewed to prevent inadvertent start-up.

There have been eight fatalities in the waste and resources sector so far in 2025, with entanglement and entrapment in machinery emerging as the fastest-rising factor, responsible for around 28% of major injuries and an increasing share of fatalities.