A recycling company has appeared in court after one of its workers suffered broken ribs when he was forced onto a metal conveyor belt in Preston.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecuted Smurfit Kappa UK Ltd following the injury at its warehouse on Campbell Street in September 2009.

The 60-year-old employee from Preston, who declined to be named, was pushing waste cardboard onto the conveyor belt when he was forced onto it by a reversing van.

The company was fined £5,000 after pleading guilty to a health and safety offence at Preston Magistrates' Court this week. The court heard that the company should have made sure pedestrians were kept away from moving vehicles by providing barriers or marked areas.


Smurfit Kappa, of Pier Head, Liverpool, was charged with breaching regulations of the workplace by failing to allow pedestrians and vehicles to work or move safely. The company was also ordered to pay £4,204 costs.

Imran Siddiqui, the Investigating Inspector at HSE, said: "The company failed to control the movement of vehicles in the warehouse, despite waste materials regularly being delivered to the site. There should also have been a segregated area for pedestrians so there was no chance of anyone being injured by reversing vans."

There are an average of 61 deaths and more than 6,000 serious injuries each year caused by vehicles in workplaces.

(BMcN/BMcC)