Safety Risks and Reliability PDF

Running head: SAFETY RISKS AND RELIABILITY
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Safety Risks and Reliability
Name
Academic Institution

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Safety Risks and Reliability
Introduction
For any scrap metal recycling plant to be successful, the safety and reliability
considerations in the design process have to be factored in from the very beginning of the
process. A scrap metal recycling plant is involved in the purchase, processing and the selling of
steel scrap metal products on a largescale level. The quality of the steel also has to be tested for
mechanical properties before and after its processing, meaning that the facility also ought to have
quality assessment facilities for the sake of this plant. The receiving bay also ought to have a
weighing and sorting facilities. This is because the design and the layout of the facilities within
the plant is done with the aim of optimizing both the efficiency of the processes and the safety
and reliability of the different aspects of the plant. This scrap recycling plant site is for this
reason occupies a 100 x 100m flat land area with access to facilities of infrastructure like road
access and power and water supply. The land should also have enough space for the different
facilities to be well-zoned inside the site which should be easily approved by the planning
authorities. The site selected for this recycling plant is a 100 x 100m area located in Humpty Doo
near the Arnhem Highway, close to Darwin.
Recommendations for Safety
There are a number of hazards in the steel scrap recycling industry, which mainly entails
the human hazard, environmental hazards, fire explosion, as well as physical hazards. The steel
scrap recycling requires a number of processing techniques which pose great risks to safety as
well as health and occupational hazards to the users of the facilities including the employees and
the visitors to the facilities. The design of the recycling facilities is a process entailing many
different steps including the collection, transportation, pretreatment, as well as the actual

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conversion processes which entail melting, refinement, forming the recycled scrap steel to obtain
different products, polishing and finishing them so as to be ready for the market. Each of these
stages presents its individual risks to safety and the occupational health of the stakeholders of
that process. For example, the first stage of the recycling process entails the loading, sorting,
collection and transportation of the pieces of steel scrap. This stage presents serious risks such as
pieces of metal flying around or even some pieces of scattered metals which tend to be sharp and
extremely hazardous. In addition, the site also risks to, machinery with exposed moving parts
during the collection, transportation, weighing or even sorting processes in the first stages of
operation of the recycling plant (Sastry, Orlemann, & Koval, 2009). The same stags could also
pose the threats of noise hazards from the operational procedures within the plant which require
application of force and sometime even falling or flying objects.
Physical hazards in a steel scrap recycling plant include physical hazards. In this
recycling plant, the site of the plan allows for the allocation of a sufficient amount of open space
at the site to be the receiving bay where all the scrap steel pieces will be sorted from into
different categories including household goods that require to be recycled, structural sections,
sheet metal, and even car bodies. This poses a great risk to all of the stakeholders in the facility
as a piece of the steel scrap metal pieces could just come of and fall down or even fly around in
that open area, causing hazards due to the exposure of broken pieces of metal that are lying
around which could severely cut the people using that area. The fact that this region is a an open
space also poses the risk of noise hazards and even exposed moving parts. The exposed moving
parts also pose the risk of severely cutting and injuring people, or even maiming and killing the
victim in intense situation or hearing loss and permanent ear damage in the case of noise hazards
and risks. The machinery used in the loading and unloading space also presents serious risks

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during the material handling process from the equipment (Hathaway, Proctor, Hughes, &
Fischman, 2011). These equipment include the trucks involved in the collection and the
transportation process, as well as moving machinery like cranes used in carrying the raw scrap as
well as the conveyor belts used in sorting and weighing the scrap steel.
The risks of these physical hazards could also be easily mitigated by ensuring that first
and foremost, all the people using these facilities are observing the protective guidelines through
wearing the appropriate Personal Protective Equipment and clothing to protect the individual
workers and other stakeholders on site from this risk. This PPE and clothing include materials
like boots, hats, gloves, thick clothes, eye goggles, and even ears protection against the noise to
prevent the workers from the risk of being cut. The equipment also ought to be well maintained
on a regular basis, to ensure that none of its parts becomes loose or exposed and thus pose a risk
during the utilization of this machinery. In addition to regular maintenance, the facility should
integrate a risk management and reliability guideline for that area prohibiting the movement of
employees and other players near the area where the machinery is functioning. This will prevent
them from putting themselves in harm’s way and thus managing the risk associated with the
open space for loading and unloading of the steel scrap material. The operators of the canes, lifts
and even the trucks also ought to be sufficiently trained in using the material, and be present in
the regular machine checks to that they are aware of any faults in these machines (Jones, 2004).
This will also go a long way in preventing the use of faulty machinery which poses such great
hazards.
Risk Assessment and Mitigation Measures
Some of the hazards that may be encountered when working or even vising a steel scrap
recycling plant include:
 Physical hazards