Dundas Chemical Company (Mosspark) Limited has been fined £100,000 after pleading guilty to breaching the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. This is following an incident where an employee was burned by a steam hose.
Dundas has a large rendering plant that processes animal waste and food industry waste in order to produce proteins, fats and oils used in the chemical fuel and feed industries. A 23-year-old employee was cleaning a process water tank in October 2019 during a night shift. The company had provided pressure washers as well as a steam hose to help with cleaning difficult areas.
However, the steam hose was heavy and difficult to manoeuvre. In addition, the nozzle became hot. As a result of this, the employee and a colleague took it in turns to carry out the steam hose task. When the colleague went to carry out another task, the employee carried on cleaning on their own, eventually attaching the steam hose to the basket of a cherry picker. When the basket was raised, the steam hose and nozzle began to spin around and steam flowed into the basket directly at the employee.
When this happened, the employee turned their back to protect their face, and began to lower the basket of the cherry picker so they could escape and use a deluge shower to cool the burn injuries.
A subsequent investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that the nozzle on the steam hoe was unsafe due to the fact it did not have a mechanism to allow the operator to start or stop the flow out of the nozzle.
In addition, a mixing valve and set-up for supplying hot water for cleaning was not maintained properly. Supervisors were aware that the valve was passing steam but no action was taken. The HSE also found that the maintenance and engineering team did not have a sound engineering understanding of the risks involved when setting up a washdown system nor how to control the risks.
HSE inspector Ashley Fallis said "Had a safe system of work been in place then this incident would not have happened. The lack of appropriate risk assessment, method statements, training and supervision for both the maintenance team who installed the valve, and the operators tasked with using the system, led to a situation where those involved were unaware of risks or simple control measures.
“This catalogue of failures resulted in a young man sustaining very serious burns, to which he still bears the scars to this day. We will not hesitate to take action against companies that fail to protect their employees.”
