Recycling baler material properties for safer baler operation.

摘要

Between 1986 and 2002, there were 43 fatalities in the United States to operators of recycling industry balers. Of these fatalities, 29 involved horizontal balers that were baling paper and cardboard (Taylor, 2002). Balers often become jammed while the baling process is occurring, and the only way to remove the jam is manually. This requires an employee to place a limb of their body into the jamming area and remove the material that is causing the jam. While lockout and tagout procedures reduce the risk of hazardous energy being released, they can still be easily bypassed, ignored, or forgotten. Recent efforts to reduce machine-related injury and death involve the development of a control system for these machines that automatically detect hazardous operating conditions and responds accordingly. The system is being developed at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) in Morgantown, WV. This system, JamAlert, automatically terminates the power to the machine when a jam is detected. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)