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Safety At and Around Shredding Plants

April 2013

Scott NewellChairman & CEO

The Shredder Company, LLCNewell Recycling Co. of El Paso

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To watch a shredder in action the first time can be a frightening experience. I have shared the experience with a number of people over the past fifty years and each time I look at the machine through their eyes I see it as being a large noisy, dangerous looking, and sounding machine.

However, we all soon get jaded to the effects of the shredder and after having been around one for 15 minutes it starts looking like a tame animal and we are no longer frightened by it. Sometimes we even get to the point where we take the machine and it's safe operation for granted and we forget to pay sufficient attention to the safe operation of that equipment.

After all, we think, the machine has been in operation for a number of years and no one has ever been hurt there. I must confess that even as manufacturers it is easy to become complacent. Every day it seems that we are faced with more pressing problems than the problems of safety, especially since the safety-type problems do not appear gradually.

They come upon us with a great rush in some catastrophic type of an event. One does not have to be a fortune teller to be able to look into the future and see that if pieces of scrap steel are bouncing out of the shredder and are falling around in the scrap yard, that someone could be injured. And, yet, because no one has been injured we do not take sufficient steps to prevent the possibility of that occurrence.

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The fact that all of you are here today gives evidence that you are concerned with the safe operation of your shredding equipment. I believe that by following some thought-out practices and procedures, we can all operate much more safely than we have in the past and I believe that this will bring benefits not only to us but to our employees and customer alike.

There will be a number of areas of concern that will be discussed. Included are:•Explosions, •Flying pieces of steel, •Electrical safety problems, •The guarding of conveyors, sprockets, chains, gearboxes, and other moving pieces such as the driveshaft. •Safety equipment for operating personnel and safety practice for maintenance personnel •Adequate warnings and signs necessary in order to keep people out of areas that should remain personnel-free and to warn people of danger.

•None of these things will make it certain that we will never have another accident around the shredder but if these recommendations are followed there certainly will be a dramatic decrease in the possibility of accidents and a dramatic decrease of the incidence of injury to personnel.

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EXPLOSIONSAn explosion is certainly the most noticeable event that can happen around a shredding plant. There can be tremendous noise, plume of flame, clouds of smoke, and general disarray. Once again, there is a problem for those of us who are around shredding plants. I can remember one situation during the start up of a new shredding plant, when there was a explosion. I had automatically dropped to the floor of the control tower. When I stood up again, within about two or three seconds and looked around the plant, I could see the employees still running away from the machine. Since they had never seen an explosion before they did not know what was going to follow next. They thought that, perhaps another explosion would follow.

Contrast that to the same plant two years later when I was at the plant site and there was an explosion, this time no one panicked, no one moved away very far, each man went to his assigned position and repaired an explosion panel and the machine was running again within 15 minutes.

The danger of this is that people (including managers) tend to get used to these small explosions and to accept them as an everyday ordinary course of events, type of thing. The problem of this is that by accepting them as normal we sometimes get lax in the prevention of these explosions and someday a much larger explosion than has ever occurred may take place and in that event it is possible to have personnel injury or damage to the equipment.

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It has been my observation that in some plants where they have had a series of small explosions with no damage, that the personnel become more increasingly careless and then one day they have a large explosion which scares everyone and then inspections are tightened up, procedures are followed more carefully, for a while, until people forget again just how bad that explosion was. I see it as the responsibility of management to continually impress upon people the danger of explosions and the need for those explosions prevention.

Obviously, the best cure for an explosion is to prevent that explosion and to prevent that explosion means that the explosive material must not be introduced into the shredding machine.

It must be eliminated from the feed stock before it gets to the shredder. Such items as gas tanks, propane bottles, paint thinner cans, and various other containerized explosive-type material have all been put into shredders with resultant explosions and sometimes damage.

It is important for each plant to teach inspectors how to find and eliminate the above materials before they get to the pile from which the shredder is being fed.

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A more difficult and more dangerous item are the explosives, like plastic explosives, dynamite and similar items.

The most damage ever done to a shredding mill, of which I am aware, was caused by a half-case of dynamite that was left in an old automobile that a contractor was using as a storage shed and which was later stolen. This car was flattened and taken to a shredder and when the material was processed it caused an explosion that lifted the mill housing apart. This type of material is very difficult to detect and is very dangerous when it causes an explosion in a shredding mill.

It is a very rare explosion indeed that causes damage to the mill housing.

There was never a more appropriate place to apply the old adage that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" than in the elimination of potentially explosive materials from being introduced into a shredder.

No matter how good the inspection systems are, there seems to be the possibility that some material will eventually get into a shredder that will cause explosions. If that fact is acknowledged, then it becomes important for us as manufacturers and processors to design our equipment and to operate that equipment in such a way that potential explosions will cause minimum damage and will give maximum protection to the personnel operating that equipment.

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What happens in an explosion

In order to understand what must be done to prevent explosion damage, it is necessary, I believe, to try to understand something about what happens in an explosion. At this point I should make it clear that I am not speaking as an export in the dynamics of explosions, I have however, observed many explosions and have discussed this matter with a number of people who are qualified by virtue of their study of explosions.

It seems that when explosive material is introduced into the shredder, and for the purpose of this illustration let's assume that a gasoline tank with some liquid fuel is introduced into the shredder, as that gasoline tank passes the anvil or cutting edge as it goes into the machine, the gas tank is ripped open and the fuel vaporizes and becomes a potentially explosive vapor present in the shredder.

As we all know, there are tremendous sparks caused by friction where the hammers are hitting pieces of scrap inside of the shredder at all times. It seems a miracle to me that every fuel introduction does not cause a tremendous explosion. It has been my experience, however, that not every single time does an explosion take place.

This leads me to believe that the proper amount of fuel and air must exist in order to sustain that explosion.

This is one of the things that I believe is improved by the use of a Smart Water System (SWS) that puts water into the shredder with compressed air in proportion to how much scrap is beingshredded at any one time.

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The SWS puts water into the shredder which keeps things cooler but it also creates a creates a steam that displaces oxygen and from long experience we know for certain that the SWS reduces the incident and the severity of explosions.

It is my unproven theory that in the absence of a SWS explosions from combustible fuel are reinforced by finely dispersed organic pieces of cloth from upholstery, seats, and etc. It is my thought that the SWS water injection removes many of those particles and allows them to exit the shredder with the shredded scrap. This material is then separated from the magnetic material by magnetic separation and by air separators that are located away from the shredder. As a consequence, the severity of any explosion is dramatically reduced.

Another advantage of the SWS as compared to the older system of removal of air from the shredder by an fan and cyclone and perhaps scrubber or bag house, is that if the small particles are not entrained in the air stream, those same particles do not have to be removed by extensive further treatment.

In jurisdictions where it is still required to remove the steam from the shredder instead of venting to atmosphere, we find that by moving much less air from the shredder we are able to reduce the size of the equipment and at the same time we can be much cleaner with the particulate matter that is eventually released to atmosphere. We have been able to meet less than 20 ppm of particulate matter and we believe that it is possible to reach a goal of 10 ppm of particulate matter by use of the SWS along with the air system from the shredder.

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If an air system is connected to the shredder, it is important to put the proper explosion relief panels on the equipment so that in the event of explosion (which we know will happen), it is important to release the pressure wave into atmosphere at a pressure that is less than the tearing strength for the duct work, cyclones, fans, scrubbers or bag houses. Hopefully, the explosion will be released to the atmosphere straight up at low enough pressure wave values so that no one is hurt and damage to equipment will be minimized.

When an explosion occurs, there is a very rapid oxidation of the fuel and a release of energy. This energy travels in a pressure wave and as the pressure wave takes place in an uncontained atmosphere it dissipates rather quickly.

However, if that pressure wave is inside of a contained area, the pressure builds up until it has built up as far as it can or until the pressure wave has sufficient strength to rupture the vessel that it is enclosed in. If the enclosing vessel has ductwork or a cyclone then the cyclone may rip apart with great force and pieces of steel can be thrown away from the area. It is important that the explosion panels release the pressure wave before the pressure wave has sufficient time to build up to the point of the tearing strength of the steel.

A formula has been developed that seems to work, and that is that there should be one square foot of explosion panel for every ten cubic feet of enclosed volume and that explosion panel must release at three pounds per square inch.

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You may be interested to know how this formula was developed.

•At first, we put explosion panels only on the mill section and then we had an explosion that destroyed a cyclone. •It occurred to us that if we put some explosion panels on the cyclone that perhaps the pressure would go away and leave the cyclone alone so we added panels to the cyclone. •This seemed to take care of the next few explosions without a problem and we were congratulating ourselves on having solved that problem. •Then we had a large explosions and again the cyclones were damaged. It only seems natural to us then that we should put further explosion panels on that system. •About that time we contacted a University professor who did some calculations and assured us that one square foot for each 30 enclosed cubic feet would probably do the job so we did some calculations and put one square foot for every twenty cubic contained feet but we did not put an explosion panel that released at a low enough pressure.

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• After the next series of explosions and further conversation with the theoreticians it was decided that we needed an explosion pressure wave release system that released at a lower PSI and that we needed more explosion panels.

• At the present time, we have found that one square foot for every ten cubic feet with that explosion panel releasing at 3PSI seems to eliminate almost all damage from explosions.

• It is important to place all of the explosion panels so that they release upward and away from any area where personnel might be located.

If all of the above precautions work correctly then the chance of the equipment suffering damage will be relatively minor. This is very important because when the equipment is not damaged and when the explosion forces are vented upward into the atmosphere the chances of personnel being injured are minimized and this is, after all, our major consideration.

Every-thing else is replaceable except that human being who could be injured in this type of an event. The most important thing to remember regarding explosions is that the personal safety of our employees and our customers is paramount

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To that end, we must be diligent in the inspection of the material that is introduced into the shredder and then we must see that the shredder has proper explosion relief venting and that our people are properly trained to stay out of high risk area. While the machine is operating there are a number of areas that should be listed as being "off limits".

Specifically, the area on the discharge side of the shredder must be personnel free at all times the shredder is operating.

The other area of major concern is the area of cyclones and scrubber. In the event of an explosion it is always possible for some piece of steel or other material to fall as the result of the explosion and of course there is the explosion wave or the pressure wave that can cause damage to a person.

The control tower as it normally sits looks down into the feeding area of the machine. In the event of an explosion there is generally a pressure wave that comes back up the feeding area and affects the control tower. The control tower should be built very sturdily and should have bullet proof glass such as LEXAN installed as windows in that control tower. Those windows must be installed securely so that they do not come out and injure people in the control tower.

A growing number of shredder plants are being operated remotely with the use of camera’s and screens and we will not be surprised if this trend continues and gains strength. It is not only for the safety of the operator but for more efficient use of personnel time and energy. Modern shredders are operating more automatically all of the time.

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EXPLOSION PANEL

EXPLOSION DUCTADD EXPLOSION PANELS TO

BAG HOUSE(CHECK WITH

MANUFACTURERFOR SIZE AND LOCATION)

EXPLOSION DUCT EXPLOSION PANEL EXPLOSION PANELS Proposed locations for explosion panels

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This is what the SWS looks like inside of the shredder. This reduces the number of explosions and reduces the severity of explosions.

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FLYING PIECES OF STEEL SCRAP

All shredders about which I know anything, have the possibility to emit pieces of steel scrap back out of the feeding device. You will note that I have used the term flying pieces. If you have ever been in a court room with a plaintiff attorney asking if you were responsible for the creation of the “shrapnel” that injured his client you might understand my desire to properly characterize the scrap as flying pieces.

It seems logical that an opening into a shredding mill large enough to let an automobile into the shredder also has an opening large enough to let a small piece of steel scrap be propelled out of the machine.

We all know that this can happen but all too often we fail to check the continuation. If a piece of steel scrap can ricochet out of the machine and fail in the scrap yard or on our neighbor's property, it stands to reason that someone could be hurt by that piece of steel scrap. That piece of scrap can by heavy or light, it can be twisting or it can be just falling.

A check of continuations will show each of us that the possibility of extensive damage is very real and this problem must be addressed by all of us.

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Modern Shredders have enclosures

Sims Adams Plant at Terminal Island

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TISCO, in Taiyuan, China, world’s largest stainless steel producer with 3 Million tons of Stainless and 7 Million tons of carbon Steel. This is a 10,000 hp shredder with the shredder itself inside of a room to control sound, emissions and flying pieces.

Note that the operators control room is just outside of the building.

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Safety shield over feeding deviceGrossman Iron and Metal

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Note that the shield extends down to very close to the DFR feed area.

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Newell Savannah shield being installed about 5 years ago.

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Drawing showing shield between the shredder and feeding system.

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ADELCA, Quito, Ecuador. Note the rubber curtains to deflect flying pieces from USO area.

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Photo showing proper handrails, kick boards, shielding around head and tail pulleys . At ADELCA’s steel mill in Quito

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Drive shaft guard to reduce consequential damage in case of failure.

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The exact mechanics of how that piece of steel scrap comes out of the machine are not known, but it seems that the hammers traveling at about 15,000 feet per minute can impart a sufficient velocity to a piece of steel scrap so that it can possible ricochet once, twice, perhaps even three times and still leave the machine with some amount of velocity.

Certainly not a very high percentage of pieces ever leave the machine in this matter but when you are handling millions of pieces a day, a statistically very small percentage can amount to a large number of pieces.

In order to combat this problem a number of deflectors and operating techniques have been designed that minimize the possibility of those pieces coming out of the machine.

First of all, the operator is instructed to keep the feed roller in the down position as much as possible and to keep scrap material in the feeding device. We have all seen what happens when the feed roller is lifted high when the machine is processing material, when there is no material in the feeding device; a large number of pieces can ricochet from the feed opening, therefore, it is important for the operator to keep the feeding device low and to keep scrap material in the feed hopper.

Modern shredder that are being operated by a Smart Shredding System (SSS) made by us or by other manufacturers, keep the feeding device low and in contact with incoming scrap at all times because the SSS only raises the feeding system when there is a requirement caused by an increase of pressure to the hydraulic system. This only happens when scrap is under the roller so this minimizes the flying piece problem.

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Normally, this will prevent any pieces from emerging, however, sometimes it is possible for a piece to ricochet off of the anvil or the feeding area and bounce straight up. Therefore, a shield is designed to fit between the shredding mill and feed roller. This shield must be kept in good repair so that it will deflect upward ricocheting pieces.

No matter how well the shields and deflectors and enclosures are designed, it might be possible for piece of flying material to get out of the shredder and the enclosures and to land in the area adjacent to the shredder or behind the shredder, therefore it is important to maintain a personnel free area around the equipment during operation.

The entire scrapyard should be a hardhat area so that if the safety precautions fail the chance for a serious accident will be minimized.

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Unshreddable Items

We have already discussed the importance of not introducing into the shredder any explosion producing material and now we should discuss the other items that should not be put into the shredder for fear of causing damage and injury.

All shredders operators know the damage that can be caused by an unshreddable piece going into the machine.

Normally, we do not consider this to be a safety problem in terms of damage to people but it should be realized that a very real danger does exist when an unshreddable piece goes into the machine.

No one knows the extent of damage that can be caused. But we know that a driveshaft could possibly break or there could be other structural damage.

It is a fact that while we do not know exactly what can happen we do know that it is certainly possible for someone to be hurt. Massive unshreddables should be kept out of the shredder for all kinds of reasons. 

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Massive unshreddable identified in entry chute

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The world’s most highly paid maintenance guy (George Adams) shows how to safely and correctly remove that piece. Note he is in safety harness and is properly clothed with all safety equipment.

• Unshreddable safely removed!

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Massive unshreddable caused serious damage, including broken bearing housing, bearing and drive shaft damage.

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Broken draw bar and broken yoke bearings on Drive Shaft. This was a $100,000 massive unshreddable but it could have been worse. It could have bent the rotor shaft, which would have made it a $500,000 unshreddable.

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Removal of a massive unshreddable after the 10,000 HP shredder, but this time lucky with no damage, as the piece was removed by operation of the reject door.

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More unshreddables

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Special Concern for wire ropeSomething that is not often mentioned but which is a serious danger is the processing of wire rope in lengths beyond 5 meters.

When a length of wire rope or cable of any kind is strung out through the incoming scrap and part of it gets fed into the shredder, a contact with a hammer can accelerate that length of wire rope from zero to 15,000 feet per minute instantly. This can cause a whip like action of the wire rope that can damage the equipment or even worse it can cause serious injury or death.

In one very sad situation, a wire rope accelerated and threw a bar over the top of the shredder and the bar hit an employee working on the picking conveyor after the magnets. The bar went through the protective cage and hit the employee in the side of the head and killed him instantly.

In all of our sales literature, we specify that wire rope or cable longer than 5 meters should not be processed by shredding.

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PROPER OPERATION OF ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT

There have been several accidents at shredding plants of which I am aware, where improper operation of electrical equipment has caused serious injury to personnel as well as extensive damage to the plant. Electrical equipment should only be operated by properly trained personnel and should never be patch fixed. If something is wrong it must be fixed properly. Operating instructions for starting gear must be followed precisely and the operating people need to develop a healthy respect for the damage that can be caused by electrical failures. The most common serious electrical accident involved opening the high voltage starter which has 4160 volts while the motor was under load. This causes a heavy flashover and damaged the equipment and seriously injured the person who opened the switch. It has also been my experience that operators tend to patch-fix something if it happens during the middle of an operating shift, believing they can wire around fuses, bypass safety devices until the end of the shift. This is very poor practice and has led to some extensive damage and some personal injury.

When there is an electrical problem, it needs to be fixed correctly and immediately.

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Very dirty filter at electrical controls. Checking found that dirty air was entering the electrical room through the cable trench!

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• This is another piece of electrical equipment that was being subject to dirt coming into the room from the conduit trench.

• The point to emphasize is that the electrical motor room has to have cool clean air at all times.

• There are numerous examples of electrical failure caused by air filled with fine iron particles causing a short circuit and serious problem.

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Some examples of what not to do! Open electrical boxes are bad, bad for safety and bad for operations.

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Safety and maintenance nightmare!

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 PROPER SHIELDING OF MOVING EQUIPMENT

While the equipment that we are going to discuss in this section is not as spectacular or as obvious as an explosion or flying piece of steel, you may be surprised to realize that more injuries and more deaths have been caused by improper operation of conveyors than any other piece of equipment around the shredder.

This is an area that has been specifically covered by OSHA regulations, but too often these regulations are ignored or not followed completely.

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Note the chains to prevent entry to an area where there is rotating equipment. Also note the fire extinguisher present.

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All pinch points at conveyors must be protected by proper shielding. Also note that Pancho is wearing hard hat, glasses

with side protection, bright vest and hard toes shoes.

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Belts and pulleys must be totally guarded

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Belts and pulley covers are requried.

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Safety during Maintenance ProceduresPancho Rojas, Shredder Manager at SAR TI, uses a model of his shredder to explain to the maintenance team what they will be doing during a scheduled procedure. In this photo he is getting the team ready to change a back wall casting, which is never easy. The team gather around and go through the plan step by step before going to the shredder.

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Please note the removable catwalk which is added when working inside of the shredder. Please note the cover for the rotating positioning device on the end of the rotor.

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Hammer ChangingIt is important to have a safe place to stand while connecting a lifting device to the hammers and pin protectors that must be held while the pin is being withdrawn hydraulically.

The rotor needs to be held in position so that when some castings are removed from the rotor that it will not try to turn because of the out of balance situation.

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Note catwalk and handrails complete with kick boards. All rotating equipment has been protected with screens or by other shields.

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It is important to identify confined spaces and to apply the correct safety procedures when working inside of these areas.

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Pinch points are shielded and there are barriers to prevent employees from getting caught by conveyor belt and or rollers.

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All electrical and hydraulic rooms at SAR plants are kept in very, very clean condition as a matter of company policy.

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SAR TI have photos on each of the pieces of hydraulic equipment in the hydraulic room showing the equipment that each powers. This helps the employees to properly lock out the equipment before starting work on that piece.

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Warning signs and labels help employees to recognize what they are doing and provides information and motivation to do it correctly.

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Safety Alert to warn maintenance people of the dangers, in this case of very high pressure oil leaks. This is a photo of someone’s hand who simply pointed to a very high oil pressure leak in a pipe. The oil entered his hand and cause extensive damage.

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SAFETY DURING MAINTENANCE PROCEDURESIt may or may not be surprising to you to realize that a large percentage of the accidents that result in injuries to personnel occur when the shredding plant is shut down and maintenance is being performed. It is important to be aware of the type of problems that can occur and the preventive methods that will keep them from happening. (photo of SAR model)

Some of the things to look for are as follows:

The electric motor that powers the shredder mill itself must be able to be locked out so that there is no chance of this motor being started while people are in the shredder.

All modern shredders are opened for maintenance and therefore must have safety blocks to insure that the mill will stay open while personnel are in the area.

It should be remembered that no one should work alone at the shredder because of the danger of injury due to slipping, dropping something on one's self, etc. If a person is alone he may not be able to get help.

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2.) The rotor should be held in place while it is being worked on. While changing hammers the rotor becomes unbalanced and if the wrong type of safety hold is being used the rotor could turn quickly injuring someone.

3.) Changing hammers can be a dangerous operation . When the hammer pin is being changed with a hydraulic system, there is considerable pressure required to move the pin and there is always the danger of something breaking or slipping and whenthere is that amount of pressure available, something can fly.

Injuries have occurred when changing hammers and itrequires diligence on the part of the supervisor to keep people in an area where is something fails it fails to the safe side.

When more than one worker is welding, care must be taken to avoidflash burns as the welding is being done in a close proximity and it is quite often a problem in that one welder will catch a flash-burn from a welder working nearby. This problem can be solved but, again, it requires diligence on the part of the supervisor to keep the men properly spaced.

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4.) The men should have proper tools for the job that they are working on. Injuries have occurred because someone tried to do something with a tool that did not fit. He tried to improvise, triedto stack pieces on top of each other in order to use a hydraulic jack when a jack should have been placed in another position. The proper tools should be available and should be used.

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5.) Extreme caution must be exercised when cleaning out ductwork And cyclones. Several people have been injured by the failure to Lock out an airlock while working inside a cyclone.

Electrical switches should have the ability to be locked in an open position so that there is no chance of an accidental equipment start-up.   

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The following are a series of warnings appropriate to post at your shredding plant. Observance of these warnings will make your shredding plant a safer place.

1. WARNING Exclude from processing all items that can cause explosion or fire. Examples are items such as gasoline tanks, propane tanks, paint thinner cans, and closed containers of any kind.

Extreme caution should be exercised in order to prevent explosives such as dynamite or plastic explosives from ever entering into the shredder. It should be noted that the above list is not intended to be exhaustive but rather contains examples of items to avoid.

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2. WARNING

Exclude from material to be processed all types of massive unshreddable material such as steel billets or ingots, heavy steel shafts large gears, or large electric rotors.

The above list is not intended to be exhaustive but rather contains examples of items to avoid.

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4. WARNING In order to minimize the danger of pieces of materials flying back from the mouth of the shredder, the feed roll should be kept as close as possible to the feed ramp at all times during shredder operations. 

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3. WARNING Exclude from material to be processed all types of long pieces of wire rope and other types of long stringy items. Attempts to shred this type of material may cause the long pieces to accelerate very quickly allowing that long piece either to strike someone or to throw some other type of scrap material around the scrapyard which may strike someone.

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5. WARNING Despite careful operation particles of scrap material may

occasionally be ejected back from the shredder with sufficient force to cause injury to persons or damage to property.

Do not operate the shredder while any persons is within the designated hardhat area.

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6. WARNING The rotor and hammers will continue rotation for a full 30 minutes after motor shutdown. All precautions observed during the actual shredder operation should be observed during this additional period.

7. WARNING

Do not operate the shredder unless it is certain that all deflectors arein proper operating condition in order to prevent emissions from the shredder. This includes proper operation of the feed roller, checking the deflector between the mill housing and the feed roller, checking the rubber curtain behind the feed roller.

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Manager's Check List of Safety Items

 The following items should be verified on a periodic basis: 1. The entire plant should be a hard hat area. 2. During shredder operation the personnel free area (adjacent to the shredder and cyclones) must be properly observed. 3. Scrap must be inspected for explosive material before processing.

Inspector must know where to look for fuel tanks on different makes of automobiles and must exclude from scrap to be processed all types of explosive materials. 4. Scrap must be inspected or wire rope, cable and other long stringy items and these items must be excluded from the shredder.

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 5. A warning horn should be sounded before equipment starts in operation so that personnel will know to stand clear. 6. The explosion relief panels should be checked to verify that there are sufficient numbers of them and that they are working properly. 7. The electric motor room and other electrical equiment should be clean and neat and all monitoring equipment should be in good working order. Personnel should be properly trained before being allowed to operate the electrical equipment. 8. The drive shaft and rotor should be protected so that personnel can not come into contact with them while they are rotating. 9. All pinch points at conveyors should be guarded.

10. All chains and sprockets and all belts and pulleys should be guarded.

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11. All machinery should have electrical equipment that can be locked out during maintenance procedures.

12. All personnel at the shredder should be wearing hard hats, safety shoes, gloves and proper clothing. Explanation for items checked and NOT OK along with corrective action taken:   WARNING: This list is not intended to be exhaustive but rather it is intended to be a list of the type of things to look for.

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The following questions are a good reminder and the person responsible should ask these often:•First, note whether or not proper personnel free zones are being maintained while the machine is in operation.•Secondly, note if the appropriate hard hat, proper shoes, and eye protection areas being enforced.•Next, are all moving machinery parts adequately protected? This means that all sprockets, all belts, sheaves, pulleys should be protected so that a man can not get his hand into the moving parts. All pinch points on conveyor belts should be properly protected to keep someone from getting hand or clothing caught in the moving conveyor.•Are all electrical boxes properly closed? •Are all areas around those electrical boxes clean and free from oil and water? •Are there warning signs located appropriately? •Do the employees on the scene have the proper safety equipment? It seems to be necessary around the shredder for all employees to have on a hard hat and for them to be wearing eye protection and hand gloves. •It is also important that loose clothing be prohibited and that long hair must be protected by being under a cap or by being held back so that it cannot become entangled in machinery.

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SummaryThere are a great number of things that can go wrong at a shreddingplant and many of them can cause injury to personnel. Efforts to reduce the chances of such an occurrence are worthwhile and will certainly pay large dividends.

Our people must be trained and then motivated to make these efforts and then we must go back to see that programs for safer operations are consistently implemented. It takes great effort to keep people from becoming lax. It seems that we must all be constantly reminded.

I think that it is very important for each of us to implement the philosophy and the policy of:

Safely or not at all

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This paper will be posted to the downloads section of the web site

www.TheShredderCo.com

If there are any questions or comments please contact

Scott NewellChairman & CEOThe Shredder Company, LLCScottNewell@TheShredderCo.com+1 915 276 3900

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