World Demolition Awards shortlist - Safety and Training
02 October 2023
D&Ri recently announced the shortlists for the World Demolition Awards, which will take place on Wednesday 18 October in Toronto, Canada, as part of the World Demolition Summit.
Congratulations to the following companies who made the Safety and Training shortlist.
World Demolition Awards 2023 - Safety and Training shortlist
Erith Contractors won the Safety and Training award in 2021. Photo: Erith Contractors
Despe, Italy
On a recent demolition of a former pharmaceutical production facility, situated adjacent to active pharmaceutical plants, Despe created a static enclosure inside the disused building. Comprising barriers made up of structural panels, the enclosure acted as a “container” for the works, aiming to completely isolate the demolition site from the nearby, active pharmaceutical plants.
Despe tested different types of panels, structures and technical specifications for the barriers to reduce the impact to the outside as much as possible.
The resulting airtight, impact-free “box” ensured no noise, dust, vibrations or water leaked out to the surrounding area. All dismantling and demolition activities inside the enclosure were monitored daily with precision instruments and dust, noise and vibration controls.
Erith Contractors, United Kingdom
Erith has devoted an entire division of its business to the development and training of its employees. As well as funding degrees and higher national certificates in building, demolition management, business and marketing degrees, and surveying, the company says it has championed the establishment of the first ever demolition degree, and the Trailblazer apprentice scheme.
Aiming to ensure employees are retained, happy and continuously gaining new skills, Erith has a proactive Health, Safety, Environmental and Quality (SHEQ) team that works to improve health and safety through behavioural change. The company also hosted a Health and Wellbeing Day for all employees working across its development site, to give its employees a chance to stop and reflect on their health and wellbeing.
Independence Excavating, United States
Independence Demolition was awarded the decommissioning and demolition of PowerSouth’s Lowman Power Plant, located in Leroy, Alabama in September of 2022. Its scope included the complete environmental, abatement and demolition of a three-unit, 40,000-t coal-fired power plant.
Prior to the works, the company, and its team of project partners, completed multiple site-specific safety plans and procedures for all the activities due to take place. Independence also used daily “Whiteboard Meetings” and “Look-Ahead Meetings” as planning and communication tools, involving its project managers, superintendents, crew foremen and its safety team, to keep everyone up to date. Independence is in the final stages of closing out the project, and has worked 71,000-man hours injury free.
Liberty Industrial, Australia
In 2022, Liberty Industrial was engaged by Rio Tinto to assist with the decontamination, demolition and disposal works for the Gove Refinery project in Australia’s Northern Territory - the largest demolition project in the country’s history.
The project was the first to use the new Hazard, Risk and Permit system developed by Liberty Industrial. All team members were required to take the Hazard, Risk and Permit training Verification of Competency (VOC), which was then turned into an online course, allowing workers to complete it from anywhere in Australia.
Liberty’s work at the Gove Refinery also involved extensive friable asbestos removal, requiring large three-story encapsulations on scaffolding to be built, and all asbestos workers to wear PPE, including full-face respirators. Liberty investigated ways to cool workers deployed in the encapsulations, where temperatures could reach 50° Celsius.
Ward Demolition, New Zealand
In 2017 Ward Demolition introduced BWARE, an online health and safety management system enabling instant communication between managers, supervisors, and the head office. Recently, the company integrated personalised training videos into the system, to empower its teams.
It has implemented a heavy oversight technique, resulting in a 260% rise in form engagement and a 458% surge in incident reporting compared to the previous five years. Ward has also added the DMR 150 and DXR 300 robots to its processes, dramatically reducing the level of risk its team members are exposed to.
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