I have recently moved carriers into the plastics industry. One of the first things to raise its head is the loading of Hoppers with plastic pellets. The offsite H&S company are complaining that the bags are 25K which they say is too heavy for a manual handling task (possibly fairly). The thing is the bags are being loaded into hoppers which are as low as they can be and the bags are an industry standard size.The chaps doing the work have appropriate PPE and training. Shouldn't these controls be enough and if not any ideas on how we can get around this?  

I would agree with your off-site.

Whilst 25Kg became an industry norm for packaging (40 bags per 1MT pallet) people do tend to miss-interpret the HSE pictogram showing a man and woman at different lift heights and seem transfixed by the male 25Kg at mid-body as some form of recommendation or permissible quantity.

Unlike the US where insurers actually generate tables based on sex, height and physical build to specify maximum lifting weights no such system exists in the UK - it is left up to assessment of the individual.

As you are talking pastic pellets these will likely be in plastic bags which are ideal for suction lifters - pallet at the side and a short transfer to the hopper.

Hi hippyp

Most of the guidance really states 25kg as a maximum--and of course, our business fraternity take that as standard.

What we should be doing is moving away from 25kgs to much more manageable weights-I well remember doing this when at work with regard to big slabs of butter and cheese and buying them in in smaller sizes to get around the problem. eg A big wheel of cheese [Emmental I think?] originally came in at 90kgs-we finished up buying it at 25% --22kgs still too heavy really, but a start. If you dont ask you won't get will you? 

Try getting in touch with the supplier and pushing for lower weights, say half if possible-get your ducks in order to deal with the possibly negative responses-ie it's never been done before-or no-one else has asked for this, what a bunch of wimps, etc., etc. And what about women in the workforce too where the suggested weights are much lower

Regards

Mike 

Originally Posted by: MikeKelly

Most of the guidance really states 25kg as a maximum 

From indg 134

If the lifter’s hands enter more than one box during the operation, use the smallest weight. 

Following this rough guide and based upon the OP:

Lifting from the top of the delivery pallet 5-10Kg / Lowering to the hopper 5-10Kg

But it is also likely they twist whilst doing so which invalidates this guidance.

Edited by user 24 October 2018 20:08:29(UTC)  | Reason: FFS

Or hows about increasing the quantity and moving to 1MT tote bags - eliminate manual handling and reduce packaging waste?

The 5-10Kg was "best case" - if you consider the female schematic the values drop to 3-7Kg, knock off 20% for twisting and you end up requiring a pack of no more than 2.4Kg =  415 bags per pallet

Edited by user 24 October 2018 20:07:34(UTC)  | Reason: further deliberation

I've spent many years in the plastics industry, and I even sat on the British Plastics Federation's Industrial Health & Safety Committee. Every year, perhaps the biggest safety issue that the industry had was manual handling. Polymers, masterbatches and nearly all raw materials come in 25kg bags. I pointed out that if the industry was serious about improving their statistics, they'd lobby the big polymer producers to reduce the packaging sizes. Needless to say, that fell on deaf ears and I didn't get anywhere........

Big polymer processors will eliminate the manual handling problems by using material feed systems (tankers delivering to silos, or octabins with wands taking the material to the feed system and into driers etc), but most of the plastics companies in the UK are not big enough to justify the expense and need to run many different materials in small batches, sometimes hand-mixing polymers with additives and masterbatches, hence the reliance on humping 25kg bags about. In this case, as Roundtuit says, you can use suction lifters on the bags, as many companies do.

Hi Roundtuit

Would the Swedish regulations be acceptable to you at 25kgs? 50kgs in Denmark! 

Apparently the same weight is applicable for men and women in Sweden.

ILO is 55kg!, no max limits stated in Oz, although they say 16kgs gives rise to a risk of back injury-too hard basket again; 51 lbs in USA.

All of course, have various other characteristics taken into account as discussed above, a real minefield as we know.

So, roundtuit take your choice, eh? I'm with the Swedes

Regards

Mike

PS Yes, good to see movement on an upper temperature limit but I'll wait and see what transpires, if any. I didn't agree at all with anything IOSH head of information and intelligence Duncan Spencer's said sbout the issue in the IOSH Mag that the temperature should not be prescriptive, seems like just the way for me. [like the 16 degrees minimum]. Prescription is often better as employers know what to achieve. In addition, employees should not be loaded with responsibility to tackle high temperatures which are down to the employers choice of proces, working patterns, clothing etc etc.  And whether there's any air con!       

Uk legislation is all good and well, being goal setting opposed to prescriptive does sometimes also lead to confusion. although NIOSH is used in the USA and that is sometimes seen as a bad thing for some reason it does provide a more scientific result instead of the usual TILE....

the worksheet is called the 'single task NIOSH revised lifting equation. utilizing multiplier values it provides a quantifiable assessment.

stating you simply cannot lift more than 25kg is simply lazy consulting.

To brand the consultants flagged in this post as lazy is a bit presumptive given we only have a brief synopsis of information in the OP.

It could be that the comment condenses lengthy deliberation - important task, conducted frequently & manually by an ageing workforce - applying ISFAIRP and concluding that the task in its current form should not continue.

Moving mutiple bags on a repetitive daily basis there would need to be a very robust defence (without invoking equipment cost) as to why the task should continue without lifting aids.