The guidance has been published as part of a series of sheets covering specific items of machinery in use at waste recycling plants.
Cable strippers are used to remove the outer plastic, or similar material, insulating sheath from electrical cabling to reveal the inner core which is typically made of copper.
Strippers include feed and output points, and controls such as start/ stop, emergency stop and often a reverse switch. They are either powered via electric motor or hydraulic drive.
WISH said that contact with the moving parts of machinery, including cable strippers, has been the cause of many serious accidents at waste recycling and similar plants.
The health and safety organisation warned that the rollers and their in-running nip points, or the “blades” on the stripping roller, are their most dangerous zone.
Contact with the feed and stripping rollers is likely to cause crushing, laceration or amputation of fingers or fingertips.
The document outlines three areas which need to be addressed to ensure the safe usage of cable strippers:
- Access from feed side of stripper
- Access from output side of stripper
- Reverse function
The full guidance for each area can be viewed online.
Chris Jones OBE, chair of WISH, said: “WISH is pleased to release the latest in its machinery safety series of INFO documents.
“A lack of machinery safety continues to be a contributary cause of a significant proportion of accidents in the waste and recycling and therefore a focus for WISH in its efforts to improve health, safety and welfare in the sector.”
WISH concluded that at least one emergency stop should be fitted to cable strippers, not including any trip-bar installed at the output area. Larger cable strippers may require more than one emergency stop which should be determined in a risk assessment.
The emergency stop should be at least allocated at the input area and easily accessible by a worker feeding cable into the machine.
WISH noted that the document should not be taken as constituting legal or other professional advice and that it accepts no liability for “any act or omission of any persons using [the] document”.
All of WISH’s machinery safety information sheets are available on the WISH website, free of charge. Other topics include safety advice on balers, belt conveyors, shredders and trommel screens.
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