Member Article

A silver lining for waste management company Yorwaste

The excellent health and safety performance of a North Yorkshire waste management company has been recognised by a prestigious national accident prevention charity.

Yorwaste has been awarded a Silver award from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), the longest-running industry awards scheme in the UK.

It comes only 12 months after the company achieved a Bronze award, in its first year of entering.

The latest award recognises Yorwaste’s excellent health and safety performance during 2018, which included the launch of its behavioural safety programme and the launch of Lifesavers, an initiative which sets out five key areas of focus for health and safety within the company and encourages staff to take part in safety ‘conversations’.

Yorwaste’s Head of Risk Management, Peter Frankish, said: “The UK waste industry reports around 4,000 accidents each year and historically, some areas of the industry have had a poor health and safety record.

“Yorwaste, however, continues to set the very highest standards in this area and the fact we have moved from a bronze to a silver award in only 12 months is evidence of this.

“Safety performance is at an all-time high and this is down to having embedded health and safety into our culture and understanding that no job is too important if it cannot be done safely.

“This has been embraced by our staff, who should be very proud of the part they have played in achieving this award.

“We won’t, of course, be resting on our laurels and our aim now is to achieve a RoSPA Gold award in 2020.”

Julia Small, RoSPA’s Head of Qualifications, Awards and Events, said: “The RoSPA Awards have become the key fixture in the health and safety calendar. Highly-respected, with almost 2,000 entrants every year, RoSPA award winners benefit from the wide-ranging rewards of improved sector reputation.”

The RoSPA awards are the longest-running industry awards scheme in the UK.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Neil Shaefer .