How to Avoid The Most Common Warehouse Safety Hazards (Part 2)

Welcome back to our guide on the most common warehouse safety hazards and how to avoid them. In part one, we covered the more common warehouse hazards such as trips, fires and heavy equipment. In this part, we’ll be covering some more obscure but just as dangerous hazards to avoid.

Falling Objects

This is perhaps the most common hazard in this part of our guide. In a warehouse, naturally, an ordinary practice is stacking objects on high platforms and shelves. That can also pose a serious danger of having said objects fall from their shelves and injuring a worker. Luckily, avoiding this hazard is a simple case of ensuring heavy loads are stacked neatly as well as checking you have a strong and sturdy racking in place (like our reliable adjustable pallet racking).

Crushing

It’s not just falling heavy objects that pose a crushing risk to your employees so you want to be taking extra measures to avoid a crushing accident. Proper training with machinery can reduce this risk a great deal, especially with any machine with augers or press machines. Moving machines and trucks in the loading bay can also pose a risk to your employees so keep employee traffic around them to a minimum. You also want to be wary of any heavy material which could fall on your employees.

Harmful Substances

If your warehouse works with strong chemicals such as asbestos, you want to ensure they’re being used safely. Some chemicals can have little to no effect on the human body but some can also be extremely harmful. To ensure your staff’s safety, make sure your employees know the dangers of the chemicals you use, as well as what to do if they make contact with them.

Ergonomics

This one is a little harder to keep in check as it’s up to the employees individually, but it’s imperative that your staff take care of their bodies as constant mistreatment will lead to pain and injury. The most common injuries are to the back and foot so you want to make sure that everyone understands the importance of proper lifting techniques.

Lack of safety education

While this may seem like the most obvious addition to this list, it’s also the most important. Without proper safety education, your warehouse won’t be able to function at its full potential. You’d be surprised by the number of companies which choose to skip training, to save money and obviously this is a big no-no.

That’s it for our guide to warehouse hazards and how to avoid them. The important thing to remember is that a safe warehouse is an efficient warehouse and avoiding proper training is the number one cause of workplace injury- so check to see if your workers are aware of the risks.

Here at Pallet Racking Direct, we have a number of essential pallet racking solutions that can help any warehouse improve its efficiency and safety. If you’d like to enquire about any of the solutions we provide, don’t hesitate to contact one of our experts on 01444 220 290.