ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

An Australian contract cleaning company has been fined AUS $600,000 (€374,000) after one of its operatives died in the ink vat he was cleaning.

Craig Tanner, 42, was national operations manager of a Sydney-based industrial cleaning company and was drafted in as a specialist to work at an ink plant in Auburn, New South Wales.

But once he entered the holding tank, the mixing blade inside abruptly revved up and crushed his leg and his pelvis. Fellow worker Yatin Mehta entered the tank to try to help Tanner but without success. He also suffered serious injuries including multiple leg fractures.

The injuries to Tanner, a father of three, were fatal and he died at the scene. The incident occurred in 2017 but enquiries have been ongoing. Buddco was the company contracted by ink manufacturing giant DIC to supply labour for its Auburn site.

In May Buddco was fined by the court investigating the incident. It decreed that the agitator inside the ink tank had not been electrically isolated which meant the risk of death or serious injury to a worker as a result of being crushed by an anchor blade was both obvious and foreseeable.

The court further found that while Buddco had a detailed written safety system in place for confined space work and tank cleaning, there was no standard or safe step-by-step procedure to ensure electrical isolation of the tank. Ink company DIC has already been fined AUS $450,000 (€280,000) over the incident.

Buddco has the right to appeal against the court's findings.