The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has cited Marietta Industrial Enterprises Inc., which operates as Refuse Recycling in Marietta, Marietta, Ohio, for 21 safety violations following the death of an employee March 30, 2011.
OSHA officials say two of the violations were willful in nature. A willful violation is one committed with intentional, knowing or voluntary disregards for the law’s requirement or plain indifference to employee safety and health.
OSHA opened an inspection after a worker was found dead inside a rotating drum assembly of a machine used to screen recyclables.
Deborah Zubaty, OSHA’s area director, says, "Marietta Industrial Enterprises showed an intentional disregard for employee safety by failing to provide lockout/tagout training to workers performing maintenance inside rotating drums, which could easily be restarted if their energy sources were not properly cut off."
"No one should ever lose his or her life because safety procedures were not followed. It is the employer's responsibility to train workers and ensure that the workplace is free from unnecessary hazards," Zubaty adds.
OSHA cited the company with 14 serious violations that involve failing to provide machine guarding, provide adequate guardrails, mark and illuminate emergency and exit signs, evaluate the workplace to determine if there were confined spaces that would require permits, examine powered industrial trucks prior to each shift, ensure that employees used electrical protective equipment, provide electrically insulated tools, develop an exposure control plan for bloodborne pathogens, offer hepatitis B vaccines and label biohazard containers. A serious violation occurs when there is substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result from a hazard about which the employer knew or should have known.
Finally, OSHA gave the company five other-than-serious violations that involved using work areas for storage, as well as failing to record work-related injuries, maintain clean conditions, provide a written respiratory protection program and provide employees with information for voluntary respirator use. An other-than-serious violation is one that has a direct relationship to job safety and health, but probably would not cause death or serious injury.
As a result of the investigation, Marietta Industrial Enterprises has been placed in OSHA's Severe Violator Enforcement Program (SVEP), which focuses on recalcitrant employers that endanger workers by committing willful, repeat or failure-to-abate violations in one or more of the following circumstances: a fatality or catastrophe, industry operations or processes that expose workers to severe occupational hazards, employee exposure to hazards related to the potential releases of highly hazardous chemicals and all per-instance citation (egregious) enforcement actions.
OSHA has proposed penalties totaling $186,300. More information about the citations is available at www.osha.gov/ooc/citations/MARIETTA_INDUSTRIAL_ENTERPRISES_314593690_0922_11.pdf.
Marietta Industrial Enterprises Inc. has 15 business days from receipt of its citations and penalties to comply, request an informal conference with OSHA's area director or contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.