A 32-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter after a worker died at a Birmingham recycling site last week.

Police were called to a site operated by Cardboard 4 Cash Ltd in Digbeth at 7.30pm on Wednesday (12 October), after the worker, who has not been named, died after an incident involving industrial equipment.

Paramedics from West Midlands Ambulance Service were unable to save the man, who died at the scene.

A statement from the West Midlands Police said that officers are liaising with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to establish the cause of the incident.

Cardboard 4 Cash is a fully registered company that offers same-day payments for recyclable cardboard, paper and plastics.

Waste industry has already eclipsed number of deaths in 2015/16

Although statistics released by the HSE show that last year (running from 1 April 2015 until the end of March 2016), deaths in the waste and recycling industry had fallen in comparison to the previous year, it is still one of the most dangerous sectors in the UK.

In 2015/16 six people were fatally injured, which is a significant decrease from the 11 deaths in 2014/15. However, last year, the rate of fatalities in the waste and recycling sector was 5.71 deaths for every 100,000 people working in these industries. The five-year average is 5.59.

The only sector to have a higher death rate is the agricultural industry, with 9.12 deaths per 100,000 people.

This year, the number of deaths investigated by the HSE, which only deals with work-based incidents and therefore does not include road-traffic accidents, has already exceeded last year’s total after a man was found dead at a Milton Keynes materials recycling facility (MRF) operated by Viridor in August. This followed a tragic incident in July at a metals recycling site in Birmingham, when a wall holding back tonnes of scrap metal collapsed, killing five workers.