OSHA Fines Ohio Plastic Manufacturer $42K for Violations

The US Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) cited the Ashland, OH plastic manufacturing facility of Liqui-Box Corporation on Aug. 11 for three serious and one other-than-serious safety violations, the agency announced Thursday.

An investigation was commenced by OSHA’s Toledo area office on June 28 this year after a worker’s left thumb was partially amputated. The agency said that the manufacturing maintenance employee was injured on Feb. 23 during the operation of a plastic blow molding press. A guard door was open and the machine’s mold closed on the worker’s hand, resulting in the amputation of the end of the worker’s thumb.

“Each year hundreds of workers suffer amputation and other serious injuries while operating machines in manufacturing facilities,” Kim Nelson, area director of OSHA’s Toledo office, said in a statement. “Liqui-Box could have prevented this worker’s injury by following common sense safety procedures. Once it occurred, the company was obligated to report the incident to OSHA – but failed to do so.”

OSHA is proposing $42,413 in fines after agency investigators found that the company did not report a worker hospitalization from an injury within the 24-hour required notification period, failed to properly guard machine operating parts and implement machine safety procedures known as lockout/tag out. The agency said that Liqui-Box also did not train its employees on lockout/tag out procedures.

The facility employs about 200 workers and makes food industry-related plastic packaging products.

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