Pollution
Humain
Environnement
Economique

In a maintenance facility of a Seveso-classified hazardous waste treatment plant, a subcontractor was collecting empty waste drums to make himself a raft. After tightly closing the lids to two drums (to make the raft float), he began welding them to a metal frame. At 11:15 a.m., one of the drums, which had contained solvents, exploded and caused a fire. The on-site firefighters kept the 150 employees indoors for 45 minutes while they extinguished the fire and took the 50-year-old seriously injured subcontractor (burns, fractured arm and leg wound) to hospital for treatment.

The plant operator had given the contaminated drums to the subcontractor and warned him of the hazard but did not ask what the drums were going to be used for. The operator changed the conditions of in-house re-use of waste containers and heightened the awareness of subcontractors and shift supervisors. The plant’s prevention plan was supplemented.