Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene November 2018 Vol.13 No.5 | Page 30

Roundup
UN Environment wins prestigious award
for new work on food, agriculture and
biodiversity
is adversely impacting climate, surface water, ground water,
top soil, biodiversity, coasts and marine environments.
and nature of these impacts might critically undermine the
effort of humans to grow food on a sustainable basis. This
would be devastating for the world’s poor, of whom 821
millionare already undernourished.
Waste Management Company fined
£650,000 plus costs after worker killed
while cleaning
A waste management company has been fined after a
worker was fatally injured while cleaning a large ballistic
separator machine.
Burning rice residues in southeast Punjab, India. The practice is
controversial because it worsens air pollution in Delhi. Photo by Neil
Palmer/CIAT
On the occasion of World Food Day, the World Future
Council announced the 2018 Future Policy Award winners.
The Future Policy Award is the only award which honours
policies on an international level. UN Environment
(TEEBAgrifood) was among this year’s winners, as
recipient of the Vision Award.
“The Vision Award goes to TEEBAgriFood, an initiative
of ‘The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity’
(TEEB) by UN Environment. TEEBAgriFood has
developed a comprehensive evaluation framework for
food systems that helps decision-makers to compare
different policies and the market to value food more
accurately,” writes the World Future Council.
For sustainable, equitable and healthy farming, as well as
food distribution and consumption, a systems approach is
needed, as all these elements need to be considered in an
integrated fashion.
UN Environment’s TEEBAgriFood report organizes
the complexities of three main blocks of the food value
chain – food production, distribution and consumption.
It provides a new evaluation framework to capture malign
and benign impacts of food production, distribution and
consumption to make it sustainable, equitable and healthy.
In doing so, it provides guidance for the global food sector
that employs 1.3 billion – more people than any other
sector.
To nourish more than 7 billion people (up to 10 billion by
2050), adequate food production is necessary. But the way
this production is taking place in many parts of the world
30
Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene • November 2018
Aylesbury Crown Court heard how, in August 2016, a
Viridor Waste Management employee climbed into the
top level of the ballistic separator - a machine that sifts
through and separates recyclable materials - to clean it,
before it was suitably isolated from the power supply.
While the employee was inside the machine, the electrical
power supply to the ballistic separator was turned on from
the control room and the machine subsequently restarted,
resulting in the employee being fatally injured.
An investigation by the Health & Safety Executive into the
incident, found that the company had failed to identify,
via a suitable and sufficient risk assessment, the risks
associated with the cleaning and clearing of blockages of
machinery. The investigation also found the company had
failed to put in place safe systems of work to ensure the
safety of workers carrying out the cleaning task. There
were inadequate guarding measures in place at the top
level of the ballistic separators, which created ready access
to the dangerous parts of machinery at the time of the
incident.
Viridor, of Milton Keynes, pleaded guilty to breaching
Regulation 11(1) of the Provision & Use of Work
Equipment Regulations 1998 and Regulation 3(1) of the
Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations
1999, and has been fined £650,000 and ordered to pay
costs of £34,197.14.
Speaking after the case, HSE inspector Emma Page said:
“Every year, a significant number of serious or fatal
injuries in the waste and recycling industry occur because
machines are inadequately guarded and because activities
such as clearing blockages and maintenance are being
undertaken when machinery is running.
“To prevent and reduce the risk of serious or fatal injury
adequate machine guards, isolation procedures and
systems of work must be in place.”