The report is of considerable importance to the organisation because many of its members use boxes to collect recyclables, including ECT Recycling which dominates the sector.
” In our view there is no statistical evidence to conclude that there is a major hazard associated with kerbside box collections “
– Andy Moore, CRN
The organisation claims the report falls down because Dr Andrew Pinder, who put the report together, refers to a previous report relating to wheeled bins. The organisation argues that it is not possible to consider one system over another without using comparable data.
CRN has also questioned why the report appeared on the Health and Safety Executive's website, saying that it believes the HSE does not plan on adopting.
Breach
Andy Moore, CRN UK coordinator, said: “Our understanding from HSE is that it has not adopted the report or its findings. Given this, CRN UK is writing to HSE this week to ask why the report appears on its website.”
The report, published by the HSE earlier this month claims that when filled with heavy objects such as glass kerbside boxes can become very heavy, to the point where safety guidelines for lifting are breached. Mr Pinder claims in the report that wheeled bins, rather than kerbside boxes should be used to collect recyclables (see letsrecycle.com story).
CRN has also said that the HSL report measuring box weights is not reflecting an accurate representation of those actually being lifted on the streets. It also said that the sample observation period was extremely short at less than 100 minutes in total for all three systems.
Bizarre
Mr Moore said: “In our view there is no statistical evidence to conclude that there is a major hazard associated with kerbside box collections. It is our view that this research seemingly published by the HSE contains significant flaws or omissions.
“We are however open to suggesting modifications to the systems deployed by our members, which are constantly evolving. We have been cooperating with the HSE in other research and have shared our own kerbside accident survey figures with the HSE, which show considerably lower accident rates than the waste industry in general,” he added.
Mr Moore claimed that kerbside box collections has “substantially fewer than average accidents” associated with it and other areas carry more risk. But the HSE, he believes, are scrutinising them as a matter of priority. “We find this frankly bizarre,” he said.
” The size and weight of boxes have been in council minds“
– Lee Marshall, Larac
He concluded that the HSE was being “extraordinarily one-dimensional and prescriptive” and believes that the Executive should be concentrating on minimising the risks associated with both rather than pushing one over the other.
View from Larac
Lee Marshall, chair of Larac, the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee, said that he did not foresee any radical change in recycling schemes. “You design a system accordingly for each area and this won't mean a shift over to wheeled bins. The size and weight of boxes have been in council minds and we are all a lot more aware of health and safety and what weights are suitable.”
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