Safety is a top priority for the European Aggregates Association

Safety is a top priority for the European Aggregates Association (UEPG), aiming for working together on continuous improvement of Occupational Health and Safety across Europe, establishing a health and safety culture that focuses on the prevention of accidents.

UEPG, the European Aggregates Association held its annual Delegates Assembly in Helsinki, Finland, on 6-7 June 2013.

This year the Assembly was hosted by INFRA ry, the Finnish Aggregates Producers Association. Safety was the principal topic, reflecting the priority for UEPG President, Arnaud Colson.

On 6 June, UEPG delegates visited the truly inspirational Rudus Safety Park, a good practice exemplar to be used by other countries in Europe.

In 2009, Rudus, an INFRA ry Member, assembled Europe’s first and, to date, only safety park in Ämmâssuo, Espoo, near Helsinki, incorporating real-life situations into its safety training.

Observations of past accidents have helped shape the Rudus Safety Park’s aims of preventing recurrences by demonstrating easily identifiable good practice alongside a reconstruction of the practices that lead to injuries and occupational ill health.
The group leader tells students how and why an accident happened, and most importantly of all, how it could have been prevented.

Rudus’ partners in the Safety Park are 23 large construction and insurance sector companies.

Rudus Safety Park hosted 5,000 visitors in 2012, and most of them were managers and supervisors in charge of health and safety, comprising employees, contractors and students.

In similar vein, UEPG is sharing excellence by organising its Sustainable Development Awards 2013, presenting 52 entries from 14 countries across Europe. The Awards Ceremony will be on 27 November, 2013, in Brussels. The second part of the UEPG safety day was focusing on live presentations by Metso and Caterpillar of safer heavy mobile equipment on sites and the promotion of associated good practices. This was linked with the influential safety project of UEPG: Safer by Design.

Safer by Design strives to achieve significant improvements in working together for the safe operation and maintenance of mobile machines by the development of voluntary best practice guidance for buyers; quarry operators; regulators; original equipment manufacturers and insurance companies.

Such guidance focuses strongly on facilitating and speeding-up user-friendly improvements by feeding into the evolution of harmonised standards referred to by the EU Machinery Directive and Outdoor Equipment Directive.

The aims and communication of the Safer by Design project are to canvass users’ opinions and thus formulate new priorities; to discuss existing and new priorities with manufacturers in multiple EU member states; to report outcomes and challenges, and to recommend possibilities of extending the scope of machine types covered.

The Safer by Design project was originally launched by the UK Minerals Products Association ( MPA). In 2009, it was approved by the UEPG, and in 2012 it was supported by the Sectoral Social Dialogue Committee for the Extractive Industry (SSDCEI) comprising APEP, EUROMINES, EURACOAL, IMA-Europe, industriAll and (in 2013) by the German Berufsgenossenschaften (BG), the statutory accident insurance body for the raw material and chemical industries.

The project was promoted with the EU-OSHA Campaigns, CEN/TC 151 – Construction equipment and building material machines – Safety; ADCO Working Group Meetings on Earth Mobile Machinery; Visibility and Noise, and EC Machinery Directive’s Working Groups meetings to work together with the whole supply chain to prevent injuries and occupational ill health.

On 27 November, 2013, the next European Minerals Forum will be focusing on working with a wide spectrum of stakeholders on safer machines and equipment to further the aims of Safer by Design by raising awareness as to the true state of the art that should be reflected by the CE mark