The US Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has released a new safety video about a fatal incident at a paper mill almost two years ago.
On 21 September 2020 at Evergreen Packaging's paper mill in Canton, North Carolina, a worker was using a heat gun to warm an epoxy resin inside a tank. The heat gun fell into a bucket of flammable resin and a fire erupted, killing two contractors.
The North Carolina Department of Labor found that Evergreen and the workers' employer, Blastco, violated numerous safety regulations and protocols and issued fines totalling $112,000.
The safety video includes an animation of the events leading up to the incident, and identifies four safety issues that led to the incident at Evergreen Packaging: hot work safety, pre-job planning, confined space safety, and combustible materials of vessel construction. As a result of its investigation, the agency made recommendations to Evergreen Packaging, the Occupation Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and Blastco – the contract company involved in the incident – to address those safety issues.
'We hope our report and recommendations will further inform industry about the risks inherent to hot work and confined space activities, and how those risks can be successfully mitigated,' said the CSB’s chairperson Katherine Lemos.
Watch the video below.
