BPF Industrial H&S Committee meet at REHAU
Wednesday, 22 January 2025
A meeting of BPF Industrial Health & Safety Committee took place at REHAU on 21 January at 10:30am.
Chaired by Richard Bladon (a consultant advising clients in HSE Management Systems, ISO 14001, HSE auditing, Workplace Safety, and Environmental Awareness) the Committee meets regularly and closely monitors H&S issues for the industry and offers support to members in reducing accidents, incidents of work-related ill health, and improve their overall H&S performance.
Attending the meeting was Dr Vikash Prasad, Chief Medical Officer at Latus Group to present an overview of health surveillance in the plastics industry. Health surveillance can include monitoring and testing for exposure to chemicals, noise, and other health risks with the aim of protecting employees from health issues and ensure compliance with regulations.
Dr Prasad emphasised the need to comply with the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) Regulations 2002: Thousands of workers are made ill every year by hazardous substances, contracting disease such as asthma, cancer and skin diseases. This costs millions of pounds each year to the industry and the economy.
Members were also advised that the HSE continues to target the plastics industry for compliance with The Control of Legionella Bacteria in Water Systems including cooling towers. The BPF issued guidance to members on this issue in May last year. Guidance can be found here.
REHAU is a premium brand for polymer-based solutions for construction, automotive and industry, with a product portfolio comprising more than 40,000 products. They celebrated their 75th anniversary recently; they started out in 1948 and started producing holding loops and running boards for the VW Beetle in 1951. A family-owned business founded in Bavaria, they have been in the UK for 45 years and currently have 378 employees in the UK and 20,000 globally.
REHAU’s Safety Environmental and Security Officer, Malcolm Brown gave a short presentation to the Committee that included details of their strategy for worker engagement and improving the H&S culture across the entire business, sharing many lessons learned.
If you are responsible for H&S at a BPF member company and would like to find out more about the Industrial Health & Safety Committee, contact [email protected]
