Hazardous substances or COSHH Cases

Case 1
In January this year, a bearings company was fined £20,000 (with costs of £15,000) following prosecution for exposing the workforce to hazardous substances in the form of metalworking fluids as a mist. The company was issued with an Improvement Notice, following an HSE visit in April 2007, to provide its workforce with adequate face protection, and to install adequate control measures on six machines, to prevent employees coming into direct contact with the mist. Inspectors returned in December 2007 and undertook a full safety audit across the whole site. Although the company complied with the Improvement Notice (and installed extractors on each machine) a subsequent inspection identified that the problem was more widespread and 100 other machines were also emitting metalworking fluid. Over the last five years there have been 15 reported cases of respiratory ill health (occupational asthma and extrinsic allergic alveolitis) from workers at the factory. This represents the second largest exposure of its kind in the UK at a single company.

Case 2
The UK's largest domestic manufacturer of energy and telecommunications cables and systems to service home and export markets was fined £27,500 and ordered to pay £10,700 costs, at Southampton Crown Court in September 2009. A factory worker was left with permanent disabilities and has been forced to retire on medical grounds at the age of 48 after contracting a severe form of dermatitis at his workplace. The company pleaded guilty to breaching Regulations 6(1)(a), 7(1), and 7(3) of the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002. The site produced high-voltage cables, which contained paper insulation that was soaked in dodecylbenzene oil. As part of the quality testing, the worker cut sections out of the cables and the oil regularly came into contact with his skin. The worker was not provided with suitable personal protective equipment and suffered skin irritations across large parts of his body. As a result of the illness he has been left with permanent scarring and has to avoid contact with a large number of substances that cause further skin irritation.