Occupational Health and Safety Activities | Polyplastics Sustainability

Group Safety Targets

In order to achieve zero occupational accidents, Polyplastics has established the policies of environment safety and health at each plant, set group-wide targets, and actively works to raise safety awareness of every employee.

Zero Accidents

Zero serious accidents or
incidents leading to serious accidents

Reducing Human Error

OIR^*1≦0.15

Main Activities

Ensuring compliance with safety regulations
Implementing regular auditing of each plant
Promoting activities for safety awareness raising
Eradicating unsafe behavior and unsafe conditions through
on-site patrols
Promoting TBM&KY^*2 activities

Improving risk assessment^*3 skills
Promoting near-miss accident activities^*4
Enforcing 5S^*5 practices
Ensuring universal adoption of pointing and calling practices
Reducing risks in case of emergency situation

*1Abbreviation for Occupational Health and Safety Act (OSHA) Incident Rate. A safety index for the rate of occurrence of industrial accidents, based on the number of injuries, with or without lost-time, per 200,000 man-hours of labor
*2TBM/KY activities [Toolbox meeting (TBM) and KY (from the Japanese term for predicting danger) activities]. Prior to the start of operations, workers break into small groups and try to identify the dangers in their work operations and program for the day in order to plan safe procedures to follow.
*3A series of steps to specify risks and hazards in the workplace, estimate the level of such risks, set priorities regarding operations, and decide on measures to be taken to reduce risks. Based on the results of this process, appropriate countermeasures against occupational disasters are implemented.
*4These activities aim to prevent accidents through the collection and disclosure of reports concerning incidents where workers narrowly avoided disasters (near-misses) during work operations.
*5Five basic practices for workers known as the “5S” system (based on five Japanese words beginning with “s” which translate as “sorting,” “setting in order,” “cleanliness,” “hygiene,” and “discipline,” respectively).

Group Targets and Results

Within the Polyplastics Group, we are working with in-house contractors to raise safety awareness among our employees in order to eliminate occupational accidents.

In FY2023, we achieved our goal of zero serious incidents. On the other hand, the OIR target was not achieved due to 8 lost-time injuries. We are committed to reviewing our safety work standards, which are the basis of safety management, as needed and ensuring that they are kept up to date, and has also established a new SE Management Office to further strengthen safety management. We will strive to prevent future incidents by more vigorously promoting safety activities at plants throughout the Group as a whole, such as by identifying the current status of safety activities at each plant and adjusting their levels, as well as by promoting safety measures tailored to the characteristics of individual plants.

Topics

Workshop to Learn about the Dangers of Noise

At the Leuna Plant (Germany), we hold a safety training event called “Safety Day” every year to raise employee safety awareness. In FY2023, a workshop was held on the topic of “Hearing Hazards Caused by Noise.”
“Occupational hearing loss,” a type of hearing impairment, develops when working long hours in a chronically noisy environment. Not only does it gradually reduce hearing ability, but it is also said to be difficult to cure once the damage has occurred. Since there are employees working in environments exposed to loud noises at the Leuna Plant, this workshop was held with the aim of raising awareness of the dangers of noise and the importance of earplugs to prevent hearing impairment.
Participants used a device called a “noise pyramid” to actually experience the volume and type of sound that affects hearing, learning about the dangers of noise and also about earplugs that are effective in preventing the onset of hearing impairment.