Waste management company Cleanaway faces potential prosecution and a fine of up to $1.5 million for an alleged serious breach of work health and safety laws over an incident at the recycling depot at Hume two years ago which caused multiple fractures and lacerations to a worker's fingers.
Industry regulator Comcare investigated the incident in which a worker's hand was allegedly caught in a machine that compresses cardboard and plastics into bales.
The man was performing routine maintenance on the machine when the alleged incident occurred.
Comcare investigators referred the matter to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions. The matter will be first heard in the ACT Magistrates Court on July 20.
The alleged incident happened on June 4, 2021, at the now-defunct waste and recycling depot in Hume.
The worker was treated in hospital but Comcare was unable to confirm whether or not he has returned to work.
Cleanaway will be charged with failing to install guarding to prevent access to the internal moving parts of the baling machine; and failing to provide workers with information and training to isolate power to the machine during maintenance.
The charge is a Category 2 criminal offence under the WHS Act, carrying a maximum penalty of $1.5 million.
The Hume facility is no longer sorting and processing recycled material after a massive fire on Boxing Day last year which fire investigators later found was caused by lithium-ion batteries entering the waste stream and breaking apart, triggering thermal runaway which quickly spread to the rest of the facility.
Last year Cleanaway was found guilty of eight charges relating to a 2014 crash on Adelaide's South Eastern Freeway in 2014, in which a driver allegedly lost control of his company-owned truck, but had six struck out on appeal to the SA Supreme Court. Two people died and two others were seriously injured in that incident. Cleanaway has a Supreme Court appeal pending on its conviction on the remaining two charges.
In 2017, Cleanaway was convicted and fined $650,000 in a South Australian court after one of the company's industrial metal stills blew up and a worker was knocked to the ground by the force of the explosion, injuring his wrist.
Compressing and baling of some recycled materials is still occurring at Hume, but only outside the burnt-out shell of the building. The material is being transported to Sydney for processing.
Tenders will be called for a new Materials Recovery Facility later this year.
