When Looking For Small Risks, Don’t Ignore The Big Ones.

When Looking For Small Risks, Don’t Ignore The Big Ones.
While work-related accidents sidelining employees for fewer than 20 days are down sharply, there is a dramatic rise in more serious injuries. Is the provincial ministry partially to blame?
– By Isaac Rudik

Here’s a bit of good news for companies and their workers: Non-fatal accidents and injuries in Ontario that result in fewer than 20 days away from work are declining rather dramatically. But there is also some bad news: Incidents serious enough to keep an employee off work for 21 or more days are up sharply – as much as 23% for injuries where someone is on accident leave for more than one month.

The question is to what extent is the Ministry of Labour responsible for the numbers? In its zeal to compel businesses to suss out big risks that cause relatively minor injuries, it has created the unintended consequence of enabling companies to overlook more serious but less frequent potential accident and injury risks that happen less frequently but cause more damage.

But regardless of the ministry’s emphasis, businesses must continue to reduce the risk from potential accidents that create long-term recovery and may cause environmental damage.

Ergo, Ergonomics

It turns out that one of the biggest causes of serious accidents and injuries comes when handling high risk material. Too many businesses use a standard dolly – pretty much the same style your neighbour rents when he asks you to help him move a few boxes to the cottage – even when hauling gas cylinders, drums and other hazardous material around a factory or warehouse. But there’s a relatively simple and inexpensive way to prevent more serious injuries and accidents: Use ergonomically correct equipment, especially when handling hazardous materials.

The harsh fact is that one size does not fit every handling situation.

Take a typical, 55 gallon storage drum as an example. Depending on what is being done with it, there are at least four different ergonomically correct devices to move the drum without risking an injury to a worker – or a potential environmental hazard because the wrong equipment was used to transport the drum from one place to another and the drum tips, rolls and opens. The list of correct equipment includes a truck, a dolly, a cradle and a stacker.

Yet when we are asked to do a safety compliance audit, more often than not one of the things we find is the wrong equipment being employed improperly. In one instance, we found a pallet stacker being used to stack drums despite the fact that there is no way to secure a drum to a pallet lifting device. As a result, workers are at risk of injury, the company is at risk of hefty fines if there is an accident and the environment may be at risk from an avoidable spill.

Smart Moves

It’s just a smart business move to ensure that a material handling solution fits the specific situation.

The smart way to protect both the company and its employees is to always use ergonomically proven material handling solutions. Normal dollies should only move non-gas, non-hazardous and not-liquid materials. Everything else requires a specialised piece of equipment.

Using the correct handling cart for different applications does require a small investment in material handling and during a recession holding down costs is especially important. But the price for the correct material handling equipment is peanuts compared with the huge cost of a worker suffering a debilitating, long term disability, the price of cleaning up the environment after a spill and paying out cold cash to the government for the fines it levies.




Isaac Rudik is a compliance consultant with Compliance Solutions Canada Inc., Canada’s largest provider of health, safety and environmental compliance solutions to industrial, institutional and government facilities.

E-mail Isaac at irudik@csc-inc.ca or phone him at 905-761-5354.