The key findings from BIR’s latest pioneering survey of shredder safety incidents have now been published.

Covering shredders of 1000 HP or more, of which there are over 1160 installed across 50-plus countries, this was the second survey undertaken by the world recycling organization with the aim of minimizing injuries at such facilities.

The 2020/21 Shredder Safety Report is available to BIR members electronically, otherwise shredder owner operators may request a printed copy of the report from asomer@bir.org or pick up a copy at the next BIR Convention.

Drawing on responses for both 2020 and 2021 owing to the impact of the COVID pandemic, the ‘Report on the BIR Shredder Safety Survey for 2020/21’ confirms that incidents during production occurred mostly at the unloading and output areas whereas maintenance-related incidents took place principally at the conveyor and hammer mill.

More than half of all injuries at shredder operations were caused either by workers being struck by an object such as ejected materials or by suffering slips, trips and falls. As was implied by the findings of the 2019 survey, the tasks being performed at the time of most safety-related incidents involved mill maintenance, operating vehicles, repairing conveyors and picking.

The survey found that 70% of reported incidents happened to employees with less than 4 years’ experience.

Based on survey feedback, the report also makes recommendations to shredder operators, including: having first-aid kits and trained first-aiders on site; and using eye protection and even dust masks in windy conditions when dust and debris are being blown around.

The BIR Shredder Safety Survey is to be conducted every year to enable owners and operators to record and manage safety incidents in order to help protect the health and safety of all persons on their premises. The subsequent report on the survey can be used to give safety briefings to temporary and permanent employees as well as to contractors working on shredder sites.

All shredder owners and operators are now being invited to participate in the BIR Shredder Safety Survey for 2022, which is available in English, Chinese, French, German and Spanish.

BIR Shredder Committee Chairman Alton Scott Newell III of Newell Recycling Equipment in the USA underlines the importance of attracting the widest possible participation: “As the survey will be carried out annually, trends over the years may be observed. Furthermore, benchmarking of safety incidents of individual shredders against other shredders can be carried out by companies through comparing specific data from their internal reports (or the .pdf files generated by this survey) with the general analyses in this report.”