LOLITA, TX – July 5, 2023 – The results of Inteplast Group’s Safety Summit, held in Victoria and Lolita, TX are in: our safety stats continue to improve and we’re ready for summer safety in our facilities.
Dan Martino, vice president of Administration, designed the Safety Summit as a symposium for Inteplast Group’s safety leaders across its 55 plants, warehouses, and other facilities. During the summit, held in Texas May 23-25, more than 50 attendees came from as far as Drumheller, Alberta in Canada, and Brentwood, NH, and had backgrounds spanning plant management, engineering, safety certification, and human resources. Texas manufacturing professionals hailed from the flagship site in Lolita, Garland, Seguin, and Houston.
Inteplast Group’s current safety record indicates a recordable incidence rate (RIR) of .93. At the end of 2022, Inteplast’s RIR was 1.13, lower than OSHA’s overall industry rate of 3.3 as reported that year.
“This is a rarity for our group and for all of you who represent safety. We have plant managers, operations managers, safety managers and coordinators, and those who are just becoming familiar with safety. Our attendees in this room run the entire gamut. Each of us has a single motivation as we look toward the future: No employee gets injured,” said Martino.
Presenters covered areas such as machine guarding, hearing conservation, knife policies, workers compensation, recordkeeping, and especially heat-related injuries as the summer arrives.
Safety leaders are on high alert for possible heat-related injuries, especially in Texas, where Operations Manager Allison Chappell works in Garland at one of five Inteplast Engineering Films plants. Due to climate change and reports of record heat worldwide, heat-related injuries are not just a southern concern, she said.
“In Canada and our northern U.S. states, we have to deal with this. Millions of U.S. workers are exposed to heat in their workplaces. In 2020, 56 fatalities related to heat exposure occurred and 1,940 injuries and illnesses transpired,” Chappell said, quoting the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Becoming overheated puts staff at greater risk for injuries because they become less alert and can be confused. Major body organs like the heart and liver can shut down due to excessive heat. These tragedies are preventable.”
Plant leaders and safety coordinators need to create an action plan to combat high air temperatures, lack of climate control, dehydration, heat from equipment, and other areas. Uncomfortable temperatures can also lead to employee turnover, said Chappell, noting the labor shortage within the manufacturing industry.
Corporate Safety Manager Jim Richter said that analyzing, reporting, and following up on near misses and first aids could prevent serious injuries.
“It’s important to record and report near misses and first aid cases. While it’s expected to put a lot of emphasis on a recordable injury – we have a team, an investigation, we determine root cause analysis, and we try to alleviate the issue – we want to remember to do the same when it comes to near misses and first aid,” said Richter.
Inteplast Group has its own in-house program, HELP (Hazardous Elimination Loss Prevention), which allows staff to anonymously report hazards on an ongoing basis through written and digital communication tools, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
National Safety Month served as a great refresher, said Martino, but the creation of an environment free from harm requires constant teamwork and a lot of preparation on a daily basis.
“After more than three decades and with the number of lives we’re responsible for keeping safe at Inteplast, we must engage and professionally support our safety leaders,” Martino stated. “They’ll go back to their plants – some as far as western Canada – to refine the safety culture there. This means that the families and the communities connected to our people get to see them come home the same way they arrived – healthy and free from harm. Isn’t that what we all want for ourselves and our loved ones?”
About Inteplast Group
Established in 1991, Inteplast Group is a leading integrated plastics manufacturer founded on the ideal of American manufacturing. Our products support diverse markets including healthcare, foodservice, packaging, building products, grocery, retail, sanitation, industrial, and graphic arts industries. Headquartered in Livingston, N.J., Inteplast Group is now more than 8,000 employees strong and operates more than 55 facilities including our flagship manufacturing complex in Lolita, Texas. Our dedicated and experienced people are committed to delivering quality products and partnering with our customers to enable their success. Visit http://www.inteplast.com for more information.
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