How BenStop GP 20/40 supports PCBU’s to create safer working environments for workers

Under the Work Health and Safety Act 2020, all PCBU’s (Persons Conducting a Business or Undertaking) have a primary duty of care to ensure the health and safety of their workers whilst they are at work. In this context, ’workers’ are those individuals engaged, or are caused to be engaged by the PCBU and those whose work activities are influenced or directed by the PCBU.

This duty of care requires PCBU’s to, as far as reasonably practicable, eliminate risks to the health and safety of its workers. If this is not reasonably practicable, risks must be minimised so far as is reasonably practicable.

In particular, a PCBU must also ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that “the provision and maintenance of a working environment that is safe and without risk to health, including safe access to and exit from the workplace.” is also evident.

The intent of the BenStop GP 20/40 shipping container door brace is to support PCBU’s to provide a safe entry/exit within the workplace. In this instance, the workplace is identified as being open 20 or 40 foot general purpose shipping containers within the PCBU’s control.

Throughout the world over, the most common factor that causes uncontrolled movement of shipping container doors is the transfer of kinetic energy. Examples of this can include wind conditions, sudden wind gusts, wind force generated from nearby moving heavy machinery as well as open doors being struck by vehicles including forklifts.

Additionally, gravity can cause the uncontrolled movement of shipping container doors when the placement or landing of containers occurs on uneven ground, resulting in misalignment of the door hinges causing them to swing once opened.

Blunt force trauma injuries are the most common incidents caused by an unrestrained container door as individuals are simply not expecting a sudden wind event to occur (as an example) and can often be caught off guard either whilst accessing or egressing the container, or when standing in the vicinity of the opened door.

Individuals have also been known to be unexpectedly been locked inside shipping containers as a result of the container doors cam locks engaging when doors slam due to the force of impact. Events like this as well as workers shutting the door without checking for other personnel inside the container beforehand, can cause the internal space of the container to become a confined space. With no physical means to open the doors from inside, individuals locked inside risk losing their lives due to entrapment.

The BenStop GP 20/40 door brace has been designed to engineer out the risk of uncontrolled movement of the open shipping container door/s, and when used correctly, holds each door in a static, open position preventing the door/s from unexpectedly swinging inwards or outwards.

The use of the BenStop GP 20/40 door brace also assists workers by allowing them time to inspect and secure the container prior to departing the workplace, reducing the likelihood of any one unexpectedly being locked inside.

Ben Portman
Director