I witnessed two senior lift engineers argue about who should climb to the back of the lift shaft using 20mm conduit for their feet and large gaps to bridge before getting a hand on a bracket or guide rail, this was 16 floors up and they both wanted to do it!

Though I’ve never been employed in the waste industry, it seems pertinent to suggest that considerable improvements in the design and operation of refuse collection vehicles (RCVs) have occurred over the past 30 years or so. During October 2011 in responses to a topic on this forum entitled 'Waste management and Transport' I mentioned that during the early 1980s HSE’s National Industry/Interest Group (NIG) which dealt with waste management was highly active in pressing RCV operators, i.e. local authorities and private waste companies, to phase out RCVs with dangerous compaction mechanism designs. This almost certainly included replacing such RCVs with ones which had hold-to-run 'dead-man' controls for the compaction mechanism cycles. Also the NIG pressed for steps and handles to be removed by UK operators from existing and new RCVs in order to eliminate the dangerous practice of step riding by crew members on moving RCVs. It is highly likely that HSE was supported in these matters by OS&H advisers who worked for local authorities and waste management companies. The initiatives regarding much safer RCV compaction mechanism design and the outlawing of RCV step riding would have been of little or no interest to journalists and the general public but undoubtedly made a big difference to RCV crew members who faced serious injury or death during their work. By contrast, members of the public will have been aware of the introduction of wheelie bins throughout the UK over the past 10-15 years. Where wheelie bins are appropriate for use, they will have made the collection of refuse and recyclables far safer than traditional dustbins (of metal or plastic) and plastic bags which were heavy and awkward to carry and thus posed a significant risk of musculo-skeletal injury. Plastic refuse bags have the added hazard that broken glass, needles and other sharp items can readily protrude through the bags and cause significant injury to workers and householders while carrying the bags. Though wheelie bins have been the subject of considerable public and media attention in recent years it seems that relatively little attention is given to their OS&H benefits. As I've no statistics to support my comments above, hopefully other forum users involved in the waste collection industry and with access to relevant statistics can confirm that major improvements have occurred in the industry.