Do we take health & safety seriously? You bet we do!
There are health hazards in most industries. Waste disposal is no different. In this post we explain the dangers we get exposed to and how we keep safe.
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A safe business is a profitable business
We would hope that no business owner wants to put their employees in harms way. However, for whatever reason, many don’t take health and safety all that seriously. Perhaps they think it’s too expensive. Well, the laws are now becoming stricter and businesses can be fined heavily or even shut down if they fail to provide a healthy working environment.
But putting this aside, maintaining strict safety standards is actually good for business. Here’s why:
- Better H & S standards can lead to reduced ACC levies. It was a long process for us, but we have now reached tertiary level ACC accreditation, which has resulted in reduced levies.
- Staff are more engaged and motivated when they feel safe
- A safe workplace improves staff retention
- More people keep working when there are fewer injuries — we have 11 trucks and we need drivers to operate them!
So, what hazards do we face at Pink Bins? Well, we often handle materials that aren’t exactly conducive to good health (ask for an information sheet on what you can and can’t dump). Here are some of them.
Asbestos
The dangers of asbestos have been well publicised. Asbestos is actually not too bad in its finished form; however, the dust is something you definitely don’t want to breathe into your lungs. So, we ask our customers wishing to dispose of asbestos to double wrap it in approved plastic beforehand.
P-lab waste
The damage P-labs do is horrific — houses often need to be stripped to the framing to make them liveable again. And you’ll be amazed by the amount of P-lab waste we dispose of — for a while, we were disposing of one P-lab a week! It seems there are plenty of Aucklanders out there who model themselves on Heisenberg from the TV show Breaking Bad.
So, we ask customers wishing to dispose of P-lab waste to line a bin with plastic before we take it to landfill. This stuff doesn’t come back to our depot.
Needles
Needles are not something we want our people stepping on. So, as a rule, we don’t accept them. However, we do make exceptions for some customers. In those cases we ask that they warn us first, and we then take the waste directly to landfill.
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