As overall safety improves, amputations remain stubborn problem

The plastics processing industry's overall safety record is improving, but one longtime area of concern — amputations — remains a persistent and dangerous problem.

On the positive side, the industry's overall safety record is getting better. Rates of injury and illness in government data for plastics processing are about half what they were 15 years ago, and the rate for 2019, the last year figures are available, hit a record low for the second straight year.

But even with those gains, amputations remain a stubborn problem, and some observers expect to see a continued government focus on it.

Plastics News analyzed 10 years of federal government safety data for plastics processing companies and found that amputations were by far the most common serious incidents.

From 2017 to 2019, for example, amputations of fingers and limbs made up 49 percent of 400 serious injury cases listed in Occupational Safety and Health Administration records for plastics processing. Other years in the last decade show a similar pattern, although there are some gaps in OSHA data.

Amputations in plastics have been a focus stretching back almost two decades. A 2002 voluntary cooperation agreement between OSHA and the Society of the Plastics Industry Inc., now the Plastics Industry Association, for example, made reducing amputations a major part of its work.

And it remains a concern for regulators today.

A 2019 update to OSHA's National Emphasis Program on amputation risks put four sectors of plastics processing on a list of 75 targeted industries. The agency based that list on safety data from 2014 to 2018. Those segments are plastic pipe; plumbing fixtures; profiles; and a large, catchall category in government data for miscellaneous plastics processing.

Two lawyers who work with manufacturers said companies should expect more scrutiny of amputation hazards from OSHA as well as a more muscular agency in general under President Joe Biden's appointees.

"They will be a lot more enforcement-oriented," said William Wahoff, a lawyer in the Columbus, Ohio, office of Steptoe & Johnson PLLC. "I would be really, really emphasizing to employers to look for the amputation hazards on extrusion machines and in various plastics processing machinery."

Nelva Smith, another lawyer at Steptoe & Johnson, expects OSHA budgets to rise significantly and for agency staffing levels to rise.

She sees amputation incidents as more likely to trigger in-person inspections by OSHA, and Wahoff said he thinks amputation incidents could become triggers for more comprehensive investigations.

"I think things are trending back to where they were, where an amputation can trigger a wall-to-wall inspection," Wahoff said.

Some companies have faced six-figure penalties after amputation incidents.

Plastic packaging firm Liqui-Box Corp. and vinyl tile maker Nox US LLC, for example, were both looking at penalties over $100,000 for multiple amputation incidents and were put into an OSHA program for "severe violators."

For Liqui-Box, the company had two separate amputation incidents at its Ashland, Ohio, factory that placed it in OSHA's severe violator enforcement program.

In a 2017 case, an employee was clearing a jam on a plastic bag sealing machine when another employee restarted the equipment, partially amputating the tip of the first employee's thumb.

In an earlier case in 2016, a maintenance employee was working on a blow molding machine when the mold closed on the employee's left hand, leading to the amputation of the end of the thumb.

In the 2016 case, OSHA cited the company for inadequate machine guarding and lockout/tag-out, as well as failing to report a hospitalization to the agency as required.

Fines in the two cases totaled $109,000, negotiated down from the $197,000 OSHA first proposed.

An OSHA spokesman said Liqui-Box was removed from SVEP but said the company agreed to a lockout audit of its equipment. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

Similarly, multiple amputation incidents at vinyl flooring maker Nox US LLC's factory in Fostoria, Ohio, also put that company in OSHA's severe violators program.

OSHA records said one employee had their lower right arm and four fingers amputated in a mid-2019 incident, while two incidents just days apart in June 2017 saw one employee suffer two partial finger amputations and another have a crushed hand requiring surgery.

In one of the 2017 incidents, OSHA said, the employee was reaching into recycling equipment to clean it, when valves closed on their fingers. The machine was not properly locked out prior to cleaning, OSHA said.

For Nox, it's meant sizable fines: $270,000 for the 2017 incidents and a proposed penalty of $317,000 for the 2019 incident.

Nox did not respond to a request for comment. An OSHA spokesman said the company remains on the SVEP list.