After Repeated Printing Press Hand Injuries, Four Printing Machinery Safety Standards Enter Review

Industry News:

On July 20, 2010, an employee at a packaging company in Laiyang, Yantai, Shandong, had an arm accidentally drawn into a paper cutter. On August 15, a worker at a bag plant in Hui'an County, Quanzhou, Fujian, lost a hand to a printing press after an operating error. On October 9, a man at a carton factory in Lanxi, Jinhua, Zhejiang, had his left arm caught by a water-based ink printing and slotting machine. In only three months, the media reported several printing press hand-entrapment accidents, and similar incidents occur several times almost every year.

That situation, however, may change soon. A reporter learned from the National Technical Committee for Printing Machinery Standardization that the committee recently submitted four printing machinery safety standards to the Standardization Administration of China for approval. The standards are currently under review.

For a long time, China's printing machinery industry used general safety standards for the machinery sector and had no dedicated safety standard for the industry itself. It was not until November 1, 2007, that Safety Rules for the Design and Construction of Paper Cutting Machines for Printing Machinery was formally implemented. For various reasons, however, this paper cutter safety standard, which took eight years to develop, is only a recommended national standard and has no mandatory enforcement effect.

The printing press safety series is titled Safety Rules for the Design and Construction of Printing Machinery and Paper Converting Machinery. The released paper cutter safety standard is Part 3, while the other four parts are Part: General Requirements, Part 2: Printing Machinery and Varnishing Machinery Including Prepress Machinery, Part 4: Bookbinding, Paper Converting and Finishing Machinery, and Part 5: Corrugated Board Production Machinery and Corrugated Board Converting Equipment. Notably, the four printing press safety standards under approval are intended to be mandatory national standards, whereas the earlier paper cutter safety standard is a recommended national standard.

According to a committee staff member, the standard-setting body had originally planned to release and implement another two printing press safety standards in the first half of 2008. The plan was suspended because the standards it had identically adopted were abolished, and the body instead used the EN1010 series developed by the European standardization organization to formulate this batch of printing press safety standards.

(Source: China Press and Publication News)

——This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn), original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-362178.html