Chemical firm fined £560,000

A Scottish chemical manufacturing company was fined £560,000 after employee was scalded, in March 2016, with boiling water. An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that a relatively safe cleaning process of washing down with cold water had evolved and changed over time. The process had developed into the practice of overnight boiling of water, while simultaneously pressurising the reaction vessel as part of a cleaning cycle. The incremental changes to the cleaning process were not subject to a review of the company’s risk assessment and the danger of pressurising a vessel was not recognised, consequently no control measures were put in place to remove this danger.