Conveyor-Fed Tyre Baling: Reducing Manual Handling on Site

By:     Conor Murphy

Manual handling is the largest single cause of workplace injury in the waste management sector. The Health and Safety Executive reports that musculoskeletal disorders from manual handling account for more than 30% of all workplace injuries in the UK, and tyre processing facilities are above the sector average due to the weight and awkward shape of scrap tyres. A car tyre weighs 8 to 12 kg. A light truck tyre reaches 25 to 35 kg. A commercial truck tyre can exceed 60 kg. Handling these items repeatedly across an 8-hour shift, lifting from ground level and raising to chest height for baler loading, creates cumulative strain that is the predictable cause of back injury, shoulder strain, and repetitive work upper limb disorders.

Conveyor-fed tyre baling addresses this at the source. By mechanising the elevation step from ground level to baler chamber height, the conveyor system eliminates the highest-risk manual handling task in tyre baling operations. The operator’s role at the conveyor infeed is to place tyres on the belt at ground level, a significantly lower physical demand than lifting and raising the same tyres to loading height.

Understanding Manual Handling Risk in Tyre Baling

The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 (as amended) require UK employers to avoid manual handling that creates a risk of injury where reasonably practicable, and where it cannot be avoided, to reduce the risk to the lowest level reasonably practicable. For tyre recycling facilities, the loading of tyres into a baler at chest height clearly falls within the scope of activities the regulations require to be risk-assessed and reduced where possible.

A manual handling risk assessment for tyre baler loading will typically identify the combination of load weight (8 to 60 kg depending on tyre type), load shape (round, awkward to grip, with no fixed handles), frequency (potentially hundreds of lifts per shift), and lift height (from floor level to 1.2 to 1.5 metres for baler loading) as a high-risk combination. The appropriate control measure for this combination is mechanical assistance, precisely what a conveyor system provides.

The Ergonomic Case for Conveyor Feeding

Ergonomics in tyre recycling processing is not simply about injury avoidance; it is about operational sustainability. A workforce that is physically capable of maintaining processing pace through a full shift, without the performance degradation that fatigue produces, is a more productive and more reliable workforce. The fatigue-induced throughput drop that manual loading creates in the final hours of a shift is an operational cost as well as a welfare concern.

The Gradeall inclined tyre baler conveyor positions the tyre placement point at a height that allows an operator to work in an upright posture, placing tyres sideways onto the moving belt without stooping or reaching above shoulder height. The physical demand of the task is reduced to a level that is sustainable across a full shift without accumulated fatigue, addressing both the injury risk and the throughput decline that manual loading creates.

Employer Obligations and the Business Case for Reduction

Under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, employers must take proportionate action on identified manual handling risks. For tyre recycling facilities where baler loading has been identified as a high-risk activity, and where a mechanical solution such as a conveyor system is available at a cost that is proportionate to the risk, failing to implement that solution is a regulatory compliance risk as well as a moral failure.

The business case for conveyor installation has three components that together make it straightforward: reduction in employer liability for manual handling injuries, reduction in sickness absence and associated recruitment and retraining costs, and the throughput improvement that generates additional revenue. The third component often covers the full investment cost within months, making the health and safety improvements essentially free in economic terms. 

“Every tyre recycling facility we work with that has added a conveyor system cites the health and safety improvement as one of the primary benefits, not an afterthought,” says Conor Murphy, Director of Gradeall International. “The throughput improvement gets the headlines in the ROI calculation, but the reduction in injury risk is what matters most to the people working on the processing line every day.”

For tyre recycling facilities looking to complete the manual handling reduction across the full processing line, Gradeall’s conveyor systems range provides equipment for multiple points in the tyre processing workflow, from intake through to post-baling bale handling.

FAQs

← Back to news