Keeping our house in order | September and October health and safety focus

When we think about workplace hazards, we often look around us - but what’s above you?

Objects can fall, loads can shift and items stored overhead can become a serious hazard. WorkSafe identifies raised and falling objects as hazards requiring formal risk management.

Where possible:

• Don’t overload shelving or racking
• Report damaged racking immediately
• Store heavy items on lower levels
• Secure unstable or uneven loads
• Never stand or work underneath a raised load
• Don’t ignore leaning or unstable stacks

Examples of near misses involving racking, shelving and stored items include:

• A box sliding off a pallet but not hitting anyone
• A carton falling from a stacked pallet
• A loose or damaged pallet board
• Shrink wrap coming loose
• Product falling from a conveyor
• Items stored too close to the edge of a shelf
• Maintenance parts or equipment left unsecured overhead

Here’s an example of a near miss that was reported, and the hazard was able to be fixed:

A worker was using a forklift to go up a ramp into the beef loft and lift pallets of cardboard before pushing them into the beef carton loft room. At certain times of the day, the sun would shine directly into the driver's eyes, making it hard to see what they were doing, and created a risk of pallets falling from height. A shade sail was installed over the beef loft forklift entrance to block the sun and improve visibility for forklift drivers, reducing the risk of drivers being blinded by the sun while carrying out the task.