• AN Essex packaging company has been fined after one of its employees sustained a serious hand injury on an unguarded laminating machine.
Gary Dean, of Southend-on-Sea, had the skin on the palm of his left hand torn away in the incident at Frith’s Flexible Packaging in September 2011.
The business was fined £8,000 and ordered to pay £2,046 in costs after pleading guilty to breaching health and safety regulations.
• NEWLY formed company Conversion UK Ltd has agreed a deal with Highcon to market, sell, support and service its Euclid digital cutting and creasing solution in the UK and Ireland.
Highcon’s sales and business development chief Chris Baker said the UK ”represents an important market” for Highcon and it has companies planning to take the first machines early this year.
• GLOBAL brewer AB InBev has introduced a new lightweight bottle for Beck’s and Beck’s Blue in the UK. The 275ml bottles are 20g lighter than before.
The company estimates the changes will impact over 130 million bottles in 2013, saving a total of 2,642 tonnes of glass, which weighs in at over 200 modern double-decker buses. The new lighter bottle will mean 1,940 tonnes of CO2 are removed from the manufacturing process this year.
• A PLASTICS company has been prosecuted for safety breaches after a worker crushed a finger on a poorly guarded printing machine.
Robert Waters, 62, caught his left hand between two rollers as he was cleaning the machine at Tenza Technologies Limited in Suffolk in October 2011. The company admitted breaching health and safety regulations and was fined £4,000 and ordered to pay £3,613 in costs.
