High demands on fire prevention
“We are constantly working to improve fire safety”
Many things can go up in flames at a recycling facility. Here, society's residual products are collected and recycled. For example, metals, paper and plastic, but also environmentally hazardous waste such as chemicals and batteries. The demands on fire prevention are therefore very high. Nils Jonasson is fire safety manager at Stena Recycling and was given the task of accelerating fire safety work at all recycling plants that handle paper and plastic in Sweden.
In Sweden, Stena Recycling has around 25 facilities that focus on recycling of paper and plastic.
“We realized early on that it was not possible to apply the same strategy to all facilities, as they had different conditions and had made different progress in fire prevention. We needed to identify the unique status, conditions and needs of each facility,” says Nils Jonasson.
Since fire safety work covers different areas, a cross-functional working group was assembled with expertise in areas such as work environment, structural fire protection and work processes.
The result of the mapping was a detailed overview of the medium- and long-term action needs of all facilities. The working group defined a national benchmark for an approved level of fire prevention measures. This allowed them to identify which sites that did not reach the defined approved level and to put in place adapted measures to raise them above the average.
“Once the measures have been implemented, the facilities are approved and, as a consequence, the national benchmark is raised. We continuously identify the facilities with the highest risks and put in place appropriate measures to address them,” says Nils Jonasson.
Fire prevention work needs to be ongoing. That is why training and inspections of facilities are carried out regularly to ensure that the safety level achieved is maintained.
“Thanks to this project, we have not only succeeded in reducing the fire risk at the facilities. We have also raised safety awareness among employees and stimulated the exchange of experience between them. Stena Recycling is now planning to apply the same approach to our facilities in more countries in Europe,” concludes Nils Jonasson.
Safe at work - no accidents in 12 years
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