To return to Home Page, please click here

The CE mark: what it means to you.

Recycling plant is potentially lethal. The pressures used and many moving parts inevitably trap some operators every year, usually by their own carelessness, over-familiarity or lack of training.

Middletons go to great lengths to design safe plant and offer on the job training when our plant is first installed and at regular call-backs to refresh old and train new staff. We take Health & Safety very seriously, and so should you.

All machinery manufactured or imported into the EU most comply with and carry a CE mark, subject to certain exceptions. The CE mark is a statement that the machinery complies with safety standards or to quote from the Act (Machinery Directive 98/37/EC): "The EC declaration of conformity is the procedure by which the manufacturer, or his authorised representative established in the Community declares that the machinery being placed on the market complies with all the essential health and safety requirements applying to it."

While many of us may regard what comes out of Brussels as a waste of paper, we think that this makes sense. If enforced it should stop rogue plant coming in to this country that is ill designed, poorly manufactured and a hazard to our work-force.

The consequences for the end-user of buying plant that is not CE marked that then results in an accident are of great interest to your local Health & Safety Inspector. At the time of writing we are aware of a pending prosecution resulting from a fatality in Wiltshire involving recycling plant and there are others in the queue.

Our local product safety inspector is quite definite that under the 2007 Homicide Act a prosecution entailing a corporate manslaughter charge is entirely possible. To quote from the H & SE website:
"The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 is a landmark in law. For the first time, companies and organisations can be found guilty of corporate manslaughter as a result of serious management failures resulting in a gross breach of a duty of care." (www.hse.gov.uk/corpmanslaughter/)
Needless to say Middletons are heavily involved in obtaining CE marks for all the products that we sell. This is an expensive process, but one that needs to be done. When comparing what we have to offer with the competition please bear in mind the possible consequences. Obtaining a CE mark is not just sticking on a label.

References:

1. The Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations 1992 as amended by the Supply of Machinery (Safety) (Amendment) Regulations 1994 (SMSR) : see www.hse.gov.uk/equipment/legislation.htm#supply

2. Machinery Directive (98/37/EC): see www.bsi-global.com/en/ProductServices/Engineering/Certification/Machinery/