Member Article

Yorkshire recycling specialist secures top safety accreditation

Recycling specialist Riverside Waste machinery has been awarded a prestigious accreditation from SafeContractor, for its commitment to health and safety excellence.

The North Yorkshire headquartered business put itself forward for recognition following a rigorous audit of the team’s safety protocol. Supplying waste balers weighing up to almost eight tonnes, and with a press force of up to 70 tonnes, Riverside operates in what has the potential to be a very high hazard sector. But with well-established health and safety policies, method statement and risk management procedures – not to mention continued training for the entire workforce – Riverside upholds a consistently faultless incident and injury free record.

Managing director Jonathan Oldfield thought this commitment to standards was worthy of industry recognition, therefore set forth on the six week journey to achieve approved SafeContractor membership. The company’s procedures and track record were thoroughly vetted before Riverside received news it had been successful on the first attempt.

SafeContractor is a renowned third party accreditation scheme which recognises very high standards in health and safety management across UK contractors. Many major blue-chip brands recognise the resulting certificate as confirmation of competency, which gives confidence that that contractor can safely and compliantly tackle even the most complex of projects.

Jonathan Oldfield elaborates: “The SafeContractor accreditation will enhance Riverside’s ability to attract new clients – large and small – who seek independently authenticated peace of mind that we will deliver on our safety promises.

“This is especially important as we continue to secure more work throughout the UK – with clients in the manufacturing, retail, warehousing, logistics, construction, printing, agricultural, local authority and recycling sectors. These sites often handle significant volumes of waste materials, plus they can have frequent pedestrian and vehicular movements, heavy operational plant and varied power supplies. Clients need to know we’ll work respectfully, compliantly and with utmost consideration for the safety of ourselves and others, from the minute we leave our Borougbridge HQ, during the waste baler installation process and throughout the lifetime of that customer relationship.”

John Kinge, technical director of Safecontractor expands: “Major organisations simply cannot afford to run the risk of employing contractors who are not able to prove that they have sound health and safety policies in place.

“More companies need to understand the importance of adopting good risk management in the way that Riverside has done. The firm’s high standard has set an example which hopefully will be followed by other companies within the sector.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Katie Mallinson .