A waste and recycling company in South East London has been fined £167,000 for stockpiling skips with the risk described as ‘potentially catastrophic’.
When Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspectors visited Recycled Material Supplies Ltd, they found skips unsafely stacked, with some deformed, which added to the instability.
The stack, which was three high in places, increasing the likelihood of collapse or falling, was also stacked in an area regularly accessed by company staff.
Inspectors also observed that there was no effective segregation by designated pedestrian routes or crossing points.
Various vehicles, including tipper lorries and loading shovels, were being driven freely around the site, and the pedestrian entrance was chained and padlocked, with pedestrians forced to use the vehicle entrance route used by lorries and other vehicles.
The company was served several improvement notices requiring it to take action within a specified timescale to remedy health and safety breaches of law.
The subsequent HSE investigation found that the company had previously been the subject of enforcement action, with prohibition notices served in 2019 in relation to stockpiling and risks of collapse.
Recycled Material Supplies Ltd pleaded guilty to failing to put employees, agency workers and other persons on site at risk of death and/or serious personal injury.
The company was fined £167,000 and ordered to pay £16,195 in costs at a hearing at Southwark Crown Court on 5 May 2026.
Commenting on the case, HSE enforcement lawyer Rebecca Schwartz said: “This company put the lives of its workers in danger in a number of ways.”
“Given the size and weight of skips, the potential consequences of any collapse were potentially catastrophic.”
“The waste and recycling industry has a poor safety record, and it is only due to sheer good fortune that nobody was seriously injured or killed.”
