A few months ago while doing some training at an Ontario Municipality the fleet manager told me about a recent visit from the Ministry of Labour. They were doing a routine inspection and noticed a plow in the shop being serviced. The inspector asked if the conveyor belt that feeds the spinner is normally protected and when the answer was “no” an order was issued.

We asked the company that “saved the day” to please tell us a little about their solution:

Earlier this spring Belt Conveyor Guarding was in discussion with a local municipality that was concerned about the safety of their snowplow and sander drivers. The problem: a person could get his or her hand caught in a pinch point area, specifically with the sand/salt conveyor located within the sanders.

When a conveyor moves, it can carry your fingers, clothing etc to places where they can get caught or pinched or worse, even mangled or severed. In this situation some one could get hurt if they got caught when reaching into the hazard area – the moving conveyor.

Pinch Point Guarding is commonly used when safeguarding machinery to ensure that people cannot come into contact with the hazards contained. By law, pinch point guarding must prevent anybody from not only being able to reach through to the hazard, but also must prevent them from reaching over, under or around the guarding.

In order to ensure that any openings aren’t large enough to allow access to the hazards contained, the guarding must comply with North American standards such as ANSI (American National Standards Institute) and CSA (Canadian Standards Association). These standards are used to determine guard mounting distances based on the maximum opening sizes in the guarding. This ensures that any body part which can fit through the mesh won’t be able to contact the machinery inside.

Guarding should be thought of as an insurance policy, a necessary cost that ensures your workers as well as your bottom line, are safe. Where there is a hazard, there should be a guard. There are many issues to consider before developing or installing any protective device. Is it ergonomically friendly and maintenance friendly? Does it conform to industry standards?

Belt Conveyor Guarding is an industry leader in the safeguarding of belt conveyors and equipment, and knows how to keep workers safe.

Remember the only way to truly safeguard against a “conveyor vs worker” injury is to

“STAY AWAY – STAY SAFE”
www.conveyorguarding.com

Tags: conveyor, LinkedIn, Safety, sander, Worker Safety

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 3:44 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.