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An industry standard for skip loaders
In June 2010 the Container Handling Equipment Manufacturers Association published a standard entitled ‘Vehicles for the collection and transportation of wastes in bulk. General requirements and safety requirements. Skip loaders’. David Buxton reports.
David Buxton Secretary CHEM
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KIP LOADERS and their associated skips have been and remain one of the most common types of vehicle used in the UK for the containment, transport
and delivery to disposal facilities of all kinds of dry waste. They are popular with householders, builders, large construction works, factories, etc for the removal from site of garden waste, builders’ rubble, scrap metal and so on. A skip loader is a machine and as such is
subject to the Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations. It is also a machine used for lifting and therefore subject to the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations (LOLER) and it is a piece of work equipment and subject to the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations (PUWER). It is the responsibility of the manufacturer,
in the case ofmachines built in the UK, or the supplier in the UK in the case of imported machines, to ensure as far as is reasonably practicable, that machines placed in the market are safe when used for their intended purpose and in accordance with the operating instructions issued with them. Manufacturers
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are also required to consider foreseeable misuse and incorporate features in the design which will minimise unsafe consequences of misuse.
Identifying hazards For lifting equipment, the manufacturer or supplier must make stability calculations to establish the safe working load (sometimes referred to as the maximum working load) of the equipment. The safe working load or, in the case of variable geometry lifting equipment the range of safe working loads, must be prominently marked on the machinery. Once the machinery is in service it becomes the responsibility of the duty holder to have it examined at regular intervals by an independent, competent and impartial person in accordance with LOLER. In order for a manufacturer to design
machinery for a particular purpose the requirements of the Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations have, by law, to be considered and implemented. This, in essence, means that all potential hazards and associated risks to health and welfare which can be identified as a result of operating the machine must be recorded and analysed in the form of a hazards and risks assessment and held in a construction file for that machine. Having identified the hazards and risks the
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manufacturer must take such steps as are reasonably practicable to eliminate them from the design. The order of priority in this process is firstly, to remove the hazard by changes to the design, secondly, to install guards to protect the user from the hazard and, thirdly, to warn the user by attaching warning labels.
Hazards and risks assessment A manufacturer has a number of options to carry out a hazards and risks assessment. It can carry this out itself, but this can lead
to underestimating or completely missing a potential hazard in the belief that no hazard exists or the machine would never be used in a way which could lead to a hazardous situation. The result is that a machine could be placed on the market which, under certain conditions, results in injury to the operator or other persons. Alternatively, amanufacturer could retain
the services of a machinery consultant to undertake the assessment. The advantage of this approach is that the assessment would be performed by an expert who is independent of the manufacturer and who would consider the hazards and identify the risks impartially. The third option is for the manufacturer to design the machine in accordance with a
Recycling & WA S T E W O R L D
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