A 70 year-old man from Otley has become the third person to be killed by a waste collection vehicle in the past two weeks.

The man was killed in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, yesterday morning (19 April), after the car he was driving collided with a bin lorry.

North Yorkshire Police says that the man was pronounced dead at the scene of the collision, which occurred at 8.55 yesterday morning. The driver of the refuse collection truck, a man in his twenties, was airlifted to Leeds General Infirmary with a serious arm injury, while the passenger in the truck was airlifted to James Cook Hospital in Middlesbrough with a serious shoulder injury.

Police are searching for witnesses to the incident, which took place on the road between Blubberhouses and Greenhow Hill in the Harrogate area. The truck was travelling south from the direction of Pateley Bridge, towards the Stonehouse Inn, and collided with the man’s Skoda Fabia, travelling in the opposite direction.

This is the third death involving a waste collection vehicle in the past two weeks.

Elderly woman killed by vehicle in Edinburgh

Moira McKeeman, an 85-year-old woman from Edinburgh was hit and killed by a collection vehicle in Edinburgh on Sunday morning (17 April).

McKeeman sustained fatal injuries after being hit by the truck, operated by waste management company NWH Group, on Morningside Road in the south of the Scottish capital. Police Scotland has launched an investigation into the incident, and has appealed for witnesses to come forward.

The NWH Group operates two material recovery facilities (MRFs) in Edinburgh and Dalkeith, capable of processing up to 4,000 tonnes of waste per week. The firm has not made a statement regarding the incident, but has confirmed that it is cooperating with investigators to determine its cause.

Vehicle operator killed in Daventry

The previous week (8 April), Kane Beard, a 22-year-old employee of Amey, was killed in Daventry after a collision with the waste collection vehicle that he was operating.

Beard was part of a four-man crew working on a refuse collection round when he was hit by the vehicle. Northamptonshire Police and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) are investigating how the collision occurred.

Rob Edmondson, Director of Environmental Services at Amey, which runs Daventry District Council’s waste collections, said on the day: “It is with great sadness that we can confirm that one of our employees has died this morning.

“We are unable to provide further details about this incident at present. However, our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with the family and friends affected, and we are working with the police to establish how this tragic event has taken place. We have ceased collections for the rest of today in order to support our employees in light of this news.”

Health and safety in the waste industry

The waste industry has previously been branded one of the most dangerous to work in, with the most recent HSE statistics for the waste management industry in the UK recording five fatal injuries to waste workers and six to members of the public in 2014/15 (excluding the Glasgow bin lorry crash in which six people were killed). In the last five years, there have been 33 worker deaths in the waste sector.

The HSE figures suggest that 1,879 employer-reported non-fatal injuries occurred in the waste sector in 2014/15, almost 70 per cent of which were due to either slips, trips, falls or being struck by an object.

Between 2010/11 and 2014/15, an average of 5,000 cases of non-fatal workplace injury were reported in the waste sector each year. This represents 4.1 per cent of all workers, twice the all-industry rate of 2.0 per cent.

Moreover, 6,000 self-reported cases of work-related illness occurred in the waste sector each year between 2009/10 and 2014/15. This accounts for around 5.1 per cent of the sector’s workforce, significantly higher than the 3.1 per cent rate recorded for workers across all other industries.

Further information is available in the HSE’s ‘Statistics on fatal injuries in the workplace in Great Britain 2015’.