Waste recycling company fined $230,000 over arm amputation

Bayswater waste recycling company Resource Recovery Solutions Pty Ltd has been fined $230,000 after successfully appealing an earlier conviction in which it was fined $330,000 over an incident in which a labour hire worker’s arm was amputated at the shoulder. The company was previously found guilty and sentenced in November 2020 for two offences — gross negligence in failing to provide and maintain a safe work environment for a labour hire worker, and non-compliance with an improvement notice issued by WorkSafe. The company successfully appealed the decision in December 2021 and was subsequently fined $230,000 in lieu of the previous penalty, for failing to provide and maintain a safe work environment and, by that failure, causing serious harm to a labour hire worker.

The gross negligence verdict was set aside, as was the charge of contravening an improvement notice which was not proven because the notice was found to be invalid. The company’s Director, Salvatore Tomo Mangione, has pleaded guilty to the same amended charges and will be sentenced in June. The company was prosecuted over an incident in January 2016 in which a worker had his arm amputated at the shoulder when it was caught in the crush point between a conveyor belt and a roller at the automated recycling plant. He had been working as a ‘picker’, a worker whose job it was to manually remove unsuitable items from conveyor belts and to clear blockages or jams in various machines. A blockage had been cleared and the belts had been restarted when the worker reached in to remove a rock that was dragged into the crush point. There was no guarding around the crush points of the belt, with no lock-out/tag-out procedure followed to isolate the moving parts of the plant when removing blockages.

WorkSafe Commissioner Darren Kavanagh said the company deserved a significant penalty, both for this incident and because they had a questionable safety history. Kavanagh said that another worker at this plant was killed in 2013 when an overloaded roof panel collapsed and crushed him. Another worker suffered a broken arm in 2015 when his arm was dragged into a moving conveyor belt that had no guarding.

“WorkSafe inspectors visited the workplace and found that numerous conveyor belts were not guarded. They were reassured that the plant was fully automated and workers were not present when the plant was running. This disregard for worker safety is the precise reason we have workplace safety laws, and this case should send a strong warning to all employers to protect the safety of their workers,” Kavanagh said.

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