January/February 2013
Extremely low temperatures and winter precipitation introduce new hazards into the scrapyard environment—and some tools for addressing those hazards come with their own risks.
Watching an ReMA “2-Minute Drill” video shoot in Fargo, N.D., a few years ago, ReMA Director of Safety John Gilstrap noticed something odd: While the actor who plays “Dave,” the videos’ star, was waiting in the freezing cold to film the next scene, his nose was turning milky white. As he was making a video on winter weather safety, the actor was starting to develop frostbite. “It was the first time I’d ever seen that happen,” Gilstrap recalls. He quickly moved the actor from the -15 degree F yard into a heated environment. Fortunately, “it was not an advanced case,” Gilstrap says. “We got him warmed up, making sure his face was covered between takes,” and the actor needed no further medical attention.
As that experience indicates, severe winter weather can bring additional hazards to the scrapyard that challenge managers and endanger employees. Most such hazards relate to either low temperatures or precipitation. “With freezing temperatures, there is the potential for frostbite and hypothermia,” Gilstrap points out, and then “you have the hazards of ice and snow—walking and driving traction is diminished. Slips, trips, and falls are the most common safety problem for scrapyards” in the winter. Tools such as insulated clothing and portable heaters can protect workers from cold-weather hazards—but some also can introduce their own safety concerns.
Cold Cautions
Even in the absence of rain or snow, exceptionally cold and windy weather conditions pose hazards to outdoor workers. Gilstrap stresses the importance of training employees to recognize the signs of frostbite and hypothermia. “Frostbite is not something that [people notice] on themselves,” he says. “It’s something that has to be recognized by a second party who knows what to do and what not to do.” If you suspect someone has frostbite, “don’t rub the [affected] area to get it warm,” he cautions, “because frostbite is the formation of ice crystals in the tissue of the skin. The ice crystals have sharp edges, and rubbing them can cause terrible damage to the tissues.” The nose and ears tend to be the most susceptible because they tend to have more exposure, he adds. If not caught and treated, frostbite can permanently damage tissue, with severe cases requiring amputation of the affected parts.
Hypothermia is a drop in the body’s core temperature—normally 98.6 degrees F—to below 95 degrees F, which causes the body to shut down. The peripheral circulatory system tries to keep vital organs warm by moving the blood supply from the arms, legs, feet, and face to the core of the body, Gilstrap explains. “This makes the extremities even more susceptible to frostbite because they’ve lost their natural warming ability. Hypothermia is a true medical emergency, worthy of a trip to the hospital,” he emphasizes. Untreated, it can lead to heart failure and death. Symptoms include shivering, lack of coordination, slurred speech, confusion, drowsiness, apathy, loss of consciousness, a weak pulse, and slow, shallow breathing. “Shivering, one of the last steps of adaptation your body has to cold weather, is actually exercising your muscles to increase metabolism and core temperature,” Gilstrap says. “People need to pay attention to what their bodies are telling them and not just try to tough it out, but to get warm” without going too far in the other direction and getting overheated.
One solution is to heat the work environment. “With cold weather, you’ll find portable heaters all over the scrapyard,” says Joe Bateman, ReMA safety outreach manager, though he warns that “management should be sure that the heaters are inspected before being fired up” for the first time each winter. Inspect hoses for cracks and wear and replace them as needed, he says. Also check connections for leaks with an approved soap solution in the same way you might check cutting-torch connections, and check heating elements for burn-throughs and obstructions, just as you would inspect your home furnace each winter. Careful placement is essential, too, he says. Placement “should be well thought out so as not to be near Gaylords or cardboard boxes or any type of dust that could cause an uncontrollable fire. If it’s a propane heater, the propane cylinder needs to be secured, not just sitting on the floor or ground or stuck in the mud outside in a sorting area.” PK Metals (Coram, N.Y.) uses space heaters to create warming stations near—but not in—work areas, says Bill Rouse, the company’s quality, environmental, health, and safety manager. “We don’t want a heater in their work area because it could become a fire hazard.”
PK Metals also ensures workers don’t remain exposed to low temperatures for long. “If it’s going to be a bitter-cold day, we give our supervisors specific rotation guidelines: No more than one hour outside, then 20 minutes inside” for yard workers, Rouse says. “If it is so cold that employees can’t be out at least an hour, we will move everyone indoors and do training and help warehouse personnel. On occasion, we have actually shut the facility down early and called it quits,” he adds. “Days where the weather is that extreme are rare, but also not worth the risk staying open.” Also using the one hour outside, 20 minutes inside rotation schedule in extremely cold weather are the northern British Columbia facilities of ABC Recycling (Burnaby, British Columbia), where -30 degrees C [-22 degrees F] is “not cold to us—[it’s] just good working weather,” jokes Lionel Chabot, northern regional manager.
Other companies don’t have set rotations but give employees more leeway for breaks to come indoors and warm up in cold weather. “There is no reason for anyone at Miller Compressing to come down with frostbite or hypothermia,” says Safety Director Nathan Yaun, who does the Milwaukee-based company’s cold weather training each year. “We tell our employees, if you feel that cold, and you’re shivering, take the time to come inside and warm up. It’s subjective. Some [people] are more sensitive to the cold and may be taking more breaks. We take their word that they are being honest about when they need to come in.” Employees at E.L. Harvey & Sons (Westborough, Mass.) also can take extra breaks in cold weather, says Jerry Sjogren, the company’s safety director and chair of the ReMA Safety and Environmental Council. Further, “we ask the managers to go around and check on their people to make sure their extremities are covered,” he says. “We also stress hydration because you need to stay as hydrated in the winter as you do in the summer.” Pacific Steel and Recycling (Great Falls, Mont.), which has 42 yards in nine states and one in Canada, takes a similar approach, says Safety Director Mark Brantl. “Although we don’t have a set rotation schedule, our managers are instructed to tell their guys [that] if they feel like their hands or feet are freezing, to come into the office space and warm up,” he says. “The rule is, come in when you need to. We watch over our people closely during these sub-zero conditions, which can last a week or two. It’s miserable.”
Clothing Concerns
Warmer clothes are probably the most common cold-weather safety adaptation. “The key is dressing in layers, which gives you all kinds of options to put a layer on or take one off,” Gilstrap says, but “all the other safety issues continue to apply,” he stresses, such as ensuring the clothes give the worker high visibility “or wearing natural fiber clothing, not synthetic, if you’re working around fire or electricity.”
As is true for clothing worn the rest of the year, cold-weather clothes or accessories should not be loose or dangling or interfere with personal protective equipment. “Hoods are a huge danger in the scrap business whenever you’re working around equipment with turning or moving parts,” Gilstrap says. “A primary mechanism of death in conveyor incidents is a hood getting caught in the rollers, which essentially hangs the person.” He points out another problem with hoods: Workers wear them “to have something under their hard hat to keep their ears warm. That’s illegal, as the hard hat must sit on the head, it can’t sit on the hood.” Instead, “there are liners specifically designed for hard hats to protect the ears and face” from cold weather. Gloves also pose a hazard around moving machinery, Gilstrap says. “You get the fingertip of a glove caught in a roller, and you’ll be shoulder-deep in a second, as it pulls you in.” A less specific concern is that “dressing for warmth increases a person’s relative volume—you get thicker wearing extra layers,” he says. “With that comes an awkwardness and lack of dexterity that need to be dealt with.”
When working in seriously cold weather, the fabric matters, too. “Cotton kills,” Sjogren says emphatically. “It has no insulating value, and it holds moisture against the skin. … We encourage our guys to wear polypropylene under-liners that wick moisture from the skin.” Also, he says, “wool socks provide great insulation, even if they get a bit wet.” That’s important, he says, because “moisture is your enemy in the winter. If your hands, feet, or body get damp, you’re going to be cold.” At training sessions, Sjogren says, “I show our guys the various types of undergarments they should be using and the cold-weather gear we have available for them, including outerwear, jackets, sweatshirts, hats, gloves, glove liners, and a voucher for work boots.” The company does not allow workers to wear rubber boots instead of work boots, but it does offer overshoes and overboots.
Because slips, trips, and falls are the most common accidents in cold, wet weather, Sjogren initiated a program to provide employees with pull-on traction aids they can wear over their boots. “We’ve had slip/fall injuries that have cost $50,000 to $60,000 because of shoulder tears and dislocations,” he says. With the traction aids “only $14 a pair, they are an excellent investment in our people’s safety.” Company policy now requires that workers wear them in slippery winter conditions. “We tell our employees to consider the conditions and put them on when it’s called for. With fluffy snow on top of ice, you can’t predict when your feet are going to go out from under you,” Sjogren says. Miller Compressing and Pacific Steel and Recycling also recommend or provide to their employees the traction aids, which also are called shoe grips, ice cleats, or ice spikes.
Another approach is to train employees to walk more safely in slippery conditions. Sjogren initiated the “Walk Like a Penguin” program to help employees avoid slips and falls. “Rather than take big strides, we urge our employees to shuffle on the ice. That’s what penguins do, and they don’t slip and fall,” he says with a laugh. The company uses illustrations of penguins on a variety of safety handouts to emphasize the message.
The hazards can vary based on the terrain, points out Andy Wichman, environmental, health, and safety manager for Schupan & Sons (Kalamazoo, Mich.). “In gravel or paved areas, you can get black ice; in dirt areas, you get ruts from equipment running over [the dirt], and when they freeze, they are a trip hazard,” he says. “We tell our employees to slow down and take their time. Falling on a pile of scrap is not a good thing—[there are] a lot of sharp edges there.”
Snow and Ice Safety
Traction aids and walking more carefully are two ways to address what often accompanies cold weather—ice and snow. For many safety directors, the first step in preventing precipitation-related accidents is to remove the hazard or hazards—and that’s not just the cold stuff. ABC Recycling’s Chabot emphasizes the importance of cleaning up the yard at the end of the workday. “It’s not unusual to get 10 to 15 centimeters of snow overnight, burying everything in a white sheet, so the next morning there’s a greater risk of falling over something that is left out of place,” he explains.
For snow and ice removal, advance planning can help. At ABC, “when the forecast is for snow the following day, we have employees set up to come in early to make sure the snow removal is taken care of so we can start our daily activities safely,” Chabot says. Yaun meets with Miller Compressing’s management in late October to decide how they will organize the company’s snow-removal effort. “We do a lot of pre-planning so we know who has responsibility for what,” he says, and to ensure the company has sufficient supplies of salt boxes and salt. “The biggest hurdle we have is getting employees to be proactive and clear away ice and snow before someone falls,” he says. “At the beginning of a shift, we make sure the snow is removed and salting is done where it needs to be.” At Schupan & Sons’ facilities, “it’s common to get an 8-inch, lake-effect snowstorm overnight, so we have a contract service to keep paved areas plowed and salted,” Wichman says. “We spot-treat ourselves,” he adds.
One part of the snow-removal plan should be where the plows dump the snow. At PK Metals, which once received 5½ feet of snow in one night, Rouse recalls, “we fill roll-off containers with snow and move it out of the working areas so it’s not piling up and melting and refreezing in those areas. We have a ‘glacier mountain’ in the back of our 13-acre facility where it sits and melts.” If you don’t have that kind of space, be sure your snow-plow drivers keep the snow piles out of areas where employees have to work. “We’ve had fall injuries because people have tried to walk over a snow pile,” Yaun says. He offers another piece of advice: Don’t put piles of snow uphill of a parking lot. “When it begins to thaw, then [the water] runs over the parking lot and freezes overnight, you have people driving into an icy condition the next morning. You always want to put snow piles at the bottom of hills so the runoff isn’t causing a hazard the next day.”
Scrapyards can control the plowing, salting, and sanding of their facilities, but the condition of their customers’ sites is another matter. Miller Compressing sends a letter to its customers reminding them to prepare for winter and to remove the snow and ice from around scrap containers. “Our drivers are empowered to not go into a customer’s site if they feel it’s unsafe,” Yaun says. “The driver calls dispatch, who calls the customer to ask that the ice and snow be removed. We get good cooperation because the customer realizes he has a liability issue if our driver is hurt on their property.” E.L. Harvey & Sons works to get the same message across to its drivers. “For years our drivers imposed on themselves the mentality that they had to do whatever it took to get the job done,” Sjogren says. “They’d get themselves in trouble on slippery surfaces. We have worked really hard telling them it’s not worth it. If it’s slippery, stay out. We want to be sure our drivers feel empowered to make those kinds of decisions to be safe,” he says. “All of our truck drivers have sand on board, and we encourage them to use it when they’re working
at customer sites.”
Winter driving is dangerous business, says Commodor Hall, ISRI’s transportation safety manager. He encourages companies to hold winter driving training sessions. “For example,” he says, “drivers should know that at 30 degrees F, ice is twice as slippery as it is at zero degrees F.” Hall also recommends ISRI’s “2-Minute Drill” DVD, volume 4, which covers winter driving safety and wintertime vehicle precautions as well as handling frozen loads and protecting yourself in cold weather.
How are frozen loads a safety hazard for drivers? Bateman uses frozen turnings as an example: “Turnings wet with cutting fluids are dumped in a roll-off box, and [they] all end up on one side of the box and then freeze. The driver picks the box up at the machine shop and brings it back to the yard. Regardless of his years of experience, if the driver has never dumped a load of frozen turnings, he will likely tip the load. Once he gets the box up in the air, [at] about the third stage of the cylinder, gravity is going to take over, and the load will tip.” To avoid that problem, “use a grapple or magnet to break up the turnings inside the box before dumping,” he suggests—and “make sure you’re on level ground when you dump.” Miller Compressing has built its own box warmer, which can hold two luggers and one roll-off. “It doesn’t have a lot of capacity, and it may take a while” for the material to thaw, Yuan says, “but it’s how we avoid turning over trucks and wrecking equipment.” Sjogren worries about frozen loads of paper and mixed waste. “We have a ‘stinger’—a long boom on our front-end loader that we use to loosen up loads,” he says. “You have to be aware that a good part of that load could come out all at once, so we keep employees away.”
Though aluminum smelting furnaces generate a lot of heat, which can be welcome in cold weather, water, snow, and ice on aluminum scrap can increase the risk of explosions if the moisture enters the smelter, cautions Ron Pooley, safety director for Mankato Iron & Metal Co. (Mankato, Minn.). “You have to be conscious of direct charging an aluminum furnace in the winter.” he says. Bateman likens it to throwing water on hot grease. Frozen loads are a business issue as well. As Pooley puts it, “we don’t buy water. If a load has a lot of snow in it, we’ll put it inside [a building] to melt before we weigh it.” All of the company’s luggers have holes on the bottom for snow and ice to drain out, he says, and the employee who handles the roll-offs takes a sledgehammer and pounds out frozen loads. “He’s very good at it,” Pooley says.
As cold weather approaches each year, management teams should sit down and take a look at their operations and review what complications cold, snow, and ice might bring and how they intend to approach them, Gilstrap says. “It’s important for management to understand and cope with the environment in which they place their employees,” he says. “There are a lot of issues that come with cold weather for which, quite honestly, I’m not aware of any universal solutions. But these issues need to be thought out, discussed, and presented. What is never wise is for management to default to the decision to just live with a recognized hazard because you don’t know what to do with it.”