Singleton Birch

JetBlack Safety provides Lime Supplier instant employee benefits.

THE PROBLEM

Singleton Birch Ltd is the UK’s leading independent lime supplier, with a worldwide customer base. Their product range includes quicklime, hydrated lime, natural hydraulic lime, graded chalk, aggregates and other specialist products and services.

They believe that all injuries and occupational illnesses, as well as safety and environmental incidents, are preventable, and their goal for all of them is zero. The company is therefore committed to ensuring that health and safety is the prime responsibility of everyone that comes into their site. With a need to keep their workforce cleaner due to the dust in the plants, the company recently purchased a JetBlack Safety Personnel Cleaning Station.

“Our Fitters can come into contact with dust that can stay on the coveralls for the duration of their working day. The need to remove this dust means that the coveralls last longer and don’t need to be cleaned quite as often,” states Stuart Howden, Safe Maintenance Planner for Singleton Birch.

Stuart continues, “Employees only had access to compressed air or a brush to clean the dust off them. Compressed air has its dangers; if it enters your bloodstream, it can be fatal. This is a topic that has been raised several times and the HSE are pushing this more and more so the need to find a solution became a priority for us. It has been known for compressed air to enter the bloodstream through a break in the skin or a body opening. An embolism of an artery can cause coma, paralysis or death depending upon its size, duration and location. This may all seem to be improbable, but the consequences of even a small quantity of air or other gas in the blood can quickly be fatal so it needs to be taken seriously.”

THE SOLUTION

Singleton Birch discovered the JetBlack Safety Cleaning Station whilst visiting this year’s Hillhead Exhibition, held in Tarmac’s Hillhead Quarry near Buxton, Derbyshire. Following this initial contact, shortly afterwards a unit was delivered and installed within the Mechanical Workshop at their Barnetby site in North Lincolnshire. Now, all of the company’s Fitters can clean themselves down before having their breaks, at the end of a shift or even before heading into the offices.

“We installed the JetBlack Safety Cleaning Station within our Engineering Workshop as this is the worst dust- affected area of our site. The Cleaning Station is a much safer and cleaner way of reducing the amount of dust that is carried into buildings and vehicles. The 30-second timer that the system uses is a good way of power-saving and also gives plenty of time for the guys to clean themselves down,” Stuart concludes.

Singleton Birch
Singleton Birch