January/February 2012
Baling is an efficient way to move and store scrap, but don’t take bales for granted. Regardless of commodity, they can cause injury or death. Train workers how to stack, load, and unload bales properly to ensure a safe work environment.
By Diana Mota
Bales simplify recyclers’ work by making scrap easier to handle, store, and transport than it would be if it were loose material. But bales can weigh from a few hundred to a few thousand pounds, and they often hold material under high compression, making them potential hazards in the workplace. Whether it’s steel or paper you’re baling, it really doesn’t matter, recyclers say. The same hazards exist across the board as you stack the bales and handle them. If a 1,000-pound bale of plastic, a 1,500-pound bale of paper, or a 3,000-pound bale of steel falls—even a short distance—it can crush a human body, causing severe injuries, loss of a limb, or death. That’s why it’s essential to train recycling facility workers to handle, store, load, unload, and work safely around bales.
In 2010, 12 workers in the United States died from injuries caused by falling bales, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (Washington, D.C.). Over the past two decades, many more scrap recycling employees have been seriously injured or killed in bale-related incidents. In one incident, a 1,000-pound bale of scrap paper fell, crushing a laborer as he was sweeping the floor around it. In another case, a worker for a cleaning company died and a co-worker was seriously injured when several 1,300-pound bales fell on them as they worked near the stack. Unloading bales from trucks and railcars can be just as dangerous. In 2009, a worker died when a bale he was unloading from a truck fell and crushed him. Bales can pose other potential hazards depending on how they’re made. For example, poorly constructed or improperly tied bales can come apart and become unstable in a stack. Further, bales that are too dense can expand and cause the bale to rupture, sending bale wire flying like shrapnel and potentially injuring employees working nearby.
Key safety considerations when working with bales include bale size, bale density, bale integrity, and employee training, which should cover stacking patterns and heights for storing and loading bales. Here’s a brief look at several recyclers and safety professionals’ bale-handling advice and where to find additional resources for safely working with and around bales.
Stacking Sensibly
One of the biggest risks when working with bales is that one or more could fall and crush someone, recyclers say. In a perfect world, bales would go directly from the baler to a truck or railcar for shipment, limiting this risk, but that doesn’t happen often, says Marty Davis, president of Midland Davis Corp. (Moline, Ill.). Most recyclers store bales for hours, weeks, or months before sending the material to a customer, he says. If you must stack and store bales, one of the first considerations should be location—where you plan to store them, says John Gilstrap, ISRI’s director of safety. “Ask yourself: What’s the likelihood of a stack being bumped?” Employees and equipment should have ample room to move around stacks without touching them. Maintain established aisles, avoid stacking bales at busy corners, and consider your geographic location, Gilstrap adds. For example, if your facility is in California, where earthquakes are more common, don’t stack bales near an emergency exit, he advises.
The “only rule” to remember when stacking bales is to make sure they’re stable, Gilstrap says. Sometimes you must reorganize the bales as they come out of the baler to make stacks stable, or else one little bump could send a bale toppling down on top of an employee or piece of equipment. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Washington, D.C.) doesn’t provide much guidance for storing bales other than its Regulation 1910.176(b), which states that “storage of material shall not create a hazard. Bags, containers, bundles, etc., stored in tiers shall be stacked, blocked, interlocked, and limited in height so that they are stable and secure against sliding or collapse.” Without further guidance from OSHA, some recyclers rely on the ANSI Z245.41 standard from the American National Standards Institute (Washington, D.C.). That standard doesn’t cover scrapyards specifically, but it provides guidance on bale stacking. Because the standards represent industry best practices, OSHA often uses them to evaluate companies, as do plaintiffs’ lawyers when they’re trying to prove an employer failed to protect an employee, says David Biderman, safety director for the National Solid Wastes Management Association (Washington, D.C.).
Bales in a stack should be uniform, meaning they have consistent material composition and shape, according to the ANSI standard. In real life, of course, not every bale comes out the same, says Joe Bateman, ISRI’s safety outreach manager. Each bale’s shape and size will vary depending on the baler used and the material processed. Even when processing a homogeneous commodity, such as OCC, “no two bales are exactly the same,” Bateman says. For that reason, workers must consider each bale’s weight, size, and shape when placing it in a stack. Bigger and heavier bales should go on the bottom; loose, incomplete, or out-of-shape bales should be set aside for rebaling. The stacks also must conform to fire codes, which might specify required clearances from sprinkler heads, for example, and any building regulations.
If the bales are adjacent to a wall, the bottom row of bales should sit about 6 inches from the wall so subsequent bales can lean toward the wall rather than away from it, according to Best Practices and Industry Standards in PET Plastic Recycling, available on the website of the National Association for PET Container Resources (Sonoma, Calif.), www.napcor.com. The ANSI standard recommends limiting straight stacks—one bale placed directly on top of another—to no more than four high. Recyclers that must create stacks higher than four bales should offset the stacks in a stair-stepped fashion or arrange them in an interlocking pattern, the standard says. Otherwise, the standard recommends using supplemental supports such as posts, walls, or racks to prevent the stacks from falling. Bateman recommends stacks no more than three bales high, which he concedes is “a real challenge in some scrapyards because they run out of room.” The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (Washington, D.C.) recommends painting a horizontal stripe on warehouse walls at the maximum stack height to prevent workers from going above that level.
When they cannot stack bales against a wall or other support structure, some forklift operators will build stacks sequentially—instead of building a single stack to full height, they create a short stack then start another, with each subsequent stack supporting the previous one, according to the NAPCOR best practices document.
Bateman suggests a few other best practices when moving bales by forklift. Stay within the forklift’s rated lifting capacity, which typically means carrying no more than two bales at a time, he says. Because the bales can block the forklift operator’s view, “it’s best to drive backward when you’ve got bales on your fork—even if it’s just one,” he says. Many accidents occur because a driver can’t see over the load and either hits another worker or bumps into something, such as a stack of bales, he says. The forklift driver also should take care to orient the fork’s blades precisely when picking up bales to avoid damaging or breaking the bale wires. Many operations use forklifts equipped with a bale clamp rather than straight forks to avoid that concern.
Recyclers should designate bale storage areas as controlled work areas, with access limited to employees trained on the risks and posted warning signs, the recyclers say. Trained workers, including managers with access to the area, should inspect the stacks daily for stability problems and, if any are found, address them immediately, says Jerry Sjogren, safety director for E.L. Harvey & Sons (Westborough, Mass.). After bales are stacked, they can settle and become unstable, so “keep an eye on wires to make sure none has broken or that the bales aren’t sagging,” he says. If possible, store plastic bales indoors because the ultraviolet rays in sunlight can degrade the plastic, according to the NAPCOR document.
Loading and Unloading Guidelines
Bales also present potential hazards when workers are loading them for shipment in trucks or railcars and unloading them at the destination. Bateman recalls an incident in which a lone worker who was loading bales into a trailer lost count of the number of bales, so he crawled on top of the load to recount them. In the process, he fell between two bales. The driver didn’t know he was trapped in the truck, so he locked the doors and drove away. The customer discovered the worker’s body when unloading the bales. This worker made two mistakes, Bateman says: First, he climbed on top of the bales; second, he was working alone. Workers also should never lean or pull on bales to hoist themselves up; several have died because a bale gave way and rolled on top of them.
In 2004, ReMA worked with the American Forest & Paper Association (Washington, D.C.) to develop Safe Shipping, a guide on how to properly load and unload scrap paper bales when transporting them in a van truck, flatbed, or railcar. Although the document addresses paper bales, recyclers can apply much of the information to other baled commodities. Before loading bales, workers first should inspect each trailer or railcar to make sure it’s clean and in good condition, then check the bales to make sure they have good structural integrity and adequate baling wire, the guide says.
All workers who handle bales should know safe, acceptable loading patterns. Some scrap consumers will refuse a load if the shipper doesn’t follow certain loading patterns, Davis points out. In all loading scenarios, workers should place one bale squarely on top of the previous bale in a stack, with heavier, larger bales at the bottom. When loading van trucks, workers should leave a 6-inch clearance from the sides and top of the trailer and make sure bales are no more than 72 inches long, the document says. “Bales often expand inside vans—leave room to unload safely,” it notes. The row of bales closest to the truck doors should be no more than two high and turned parallel to the length of the trailer to keep bales from falling or shifting against the door during transit, the guide recommends. If there are not enough bales for two complete top rows, recyclers should balance the rows on the left and right by alternately placing a bale in each row. That will ensure better weight distribution. It’s also important to not place a stack of three bales next to a single bale.
At the receiving end, workers must use care when opening truck doors because bales might have shifted in transit. If bales have fallen against the doors, the force of the weight can cause the doors to burst open when they’re unlatched, allowing material to fall out. To prepare for that possibility, workers should check the trailer doors to make sure they are latched properly and not bulging from bales leaning against them. Never open both doors at the same time, the guide warns. If the doors cannot be opened one at a time, ask for assistance. To open the doors safely, start by standing behind the latched left door, then release the latch or latches on the right door and carefully open it. Check to see if cargo is leaning toward, or against, either door. If the cargo isn’t stable, contact the customer supervisor, the guide says. Otherwise, secure the open right door and look inside the trailer to see if any material is pressing against the left door. If the load is stable, unlatch, open, and secure the open left door.
When loading and unloading a 48-foot flatbed, make certain the tractor or jack stands are underneath the trailer and that the trailer is chocked. Bales should be stacked side by side, with eight stacks on each side. The first and last rows should be two bales high and the rest three bales high, the guide says. To avoid stress on the trailer’s kingpin and tractor’s fifth wheel, the guide suggests loading four stacks per side at a time. When unloading, work in reverse, removing only three stacks at a time from each side. To keep the load as stable as possible during unloading, don’t pull some bales from the front and then some from the back, the guide says. Moore Recycling Associates (Sonoma, Calif.) has a chart and diagrams on loading trucks with bales of plastic on its website, www.plasticsmarkets.org.
Loading and unloading bales on railcars requires similar care. Before opening the door, ensure the door is in good operating condition and that nothing inside will fall out. One side of the railcar should be labeled “Unload From This Side” and the other, “Unload From Other Side.” Remove any residual steel banding from previous loads in the doorway to prevent injury. “Do not load railcars with door openings less than 10 feet wide,” the guide states. Using both doorways, load bales in stacks three high. If the doorways must be strapped, the guide suggests using nonmetallic strapping for safety reasons. The Association of American Railroads (Washington, D.C.) has created mandatory guidelines for recyclers loading paper bales into railcars, Doorway Protection for Baled Paper Products in Boxcars, which is available at www.aarpublications.com.
Training Truths
Even taking a bale apart requires special care. Most of the time, the customer removes the wire that holds a bale together, often using automated equipment. There are times when recyclers must remove the wire, however, such as when a bale must be reprocessed, Davis says. “Think about where that wire is going to go when you cut it,” Bateman cautions. Workers who cut bale wires manually must wear the appropriate personal protective equipment—including safety glasses, heavy protective gloves, hard hats, and safety shoes—and must be trained where to stand, such as in an enclosed area to contain any flying wires, he says. Establish and enforce a procedure that positions the employee away from any potential wire recoil, the PET guide states, and keep all cutting tools sharp to ensure a quick, safe de-baling operation. Some scrapyards use 24-inch bolt/wire cutters to give the worker distance from the hazard and train their employees to stand to the side of the bale and not look directly over it.
As always, training workers, observing them, and evaluating their compliance with safe practices are essential for keeping them safe, the recyclers say. Sjogren uses the ReMA video Working Safe and Smart: Around Balers to drive the point home. The video covers safe work practices around balers and bales, driving home its points with graphic photos and details from real-life accidents and fatalities. “It really gets you thinking,” Sjogren says. Employees who work with bales need training regarding bale content and quality, stacking requirements, and remedial action to correct unstable conditions, these recyclers say. “Make sure your managers and forklift drivers are on board,” Sjogren adds. “Managers are the ones who are walking around, watching inventory.” Other employees who work around bales should know the hazards, necessary precautions, and what they should do if they observe an unsafe situation.
Although material-handling training for powered industrial lift trucks might cover much of this information, how to load, stack, and unstack bales without using additional equipment such as skids requires additional training, one recycler notes. And be prepared to repeat the training. When you note that employees are not following or are unsure of procedures, take corrective actions to retrain, recyclers advise.
Diana Mota is associate editor of Scrap.