Cleanaway fined $650,000 by SA District Court over 2013 chemical explosion, fire, at Wingfield
WASTE company Cleanaway will pay a $650,000 fine for multiple “layers of failure” in its processes that led to an employee being injured in an explosive 2013 chemical fire.
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WASTE company Cleanaway will pay a $650,000 fine for multiple “layers of failure” in its processes that led to an employee being injured in an explosive 2013 chemical fire.
On Wednesday, the District Court said the company had significantly departed from its legal responsibilities while distilling industrial solvent from chemical waste at Wingfield.
Judge Geraldine Davidson said the company should have known better given that, just three years earlier, it had experienced a similarly fiery incident.
“Cleanaway is a well-resourced company where the risks associated (with its work) are well-known ... (the prior incident) should have heightened its awareness,” she said.
“There were a number of practical steps that could have been taken to reduce or at least mitigate the risk, (instead) there were a number of layers of failure.
“The gravity of this breach is the extent of the risk of death or serious injury, not just the injury that did result.”
Cleanaway faced a maximum $1.5 million fine after admitting responsibility for the incident.
In July 2013, one of its workers was knocked to the ground, and sustained burns, when a flash-fire was sparked in a large distillation tank.
Cleanaway reported the incident to Comcare, the Federal workplace health and safety regulator, and co-operated with its investigation while continuing to support the employee.
In sentencing on Wednesday, Judge Davison said the employee and his colleagues had been “dropping the still” used to remove useful solvents from 790L of liquid waste.
She said it was a new process through which 70 per cent of the mixture would be recoverable, as solvent, at temperatures of between 220 and 240 degrees Celsius.
“None of the workers had been provided with appropriate information in relation to the temperature at which the still should be running,” she said.
“At no time were they instructed that it should be maintained at the exact temperature of 163 degrees, and that it was unsafe for it to be heated above 220 degrees.”
Judge Davison said workers increased the temperature to 240 degrees and, when the sill was dropped, there was a “huge explosion” and 3m-long “jet of flame”.
She said the explosion, likely caused by either a hydrogen sulfide or iron sulphide reaction, burned the worker and broke his wrist.
“Fortunately he did not sustain serious injury, as he was wearing personal protective equipment,” she said.
“But the risk that he, or others, could have suffered serious injury was a very real one.”
Judge Davison said that, though the incident, Cleanaway had demonstrated a lack of information-sharing and supervision, as well as “fundamental errors” in approach.
She noted the company’s genuine contrition and remorse, but said its three prior breaches of workplace law showed its “high degree of culpability”.
