Ohio Polytech, LLC: OSHA inspections and violations

Incident on Feb 13, 2022: Employee receives open fracture and amputation finger injury

At approximately 4:30 a.m. on February 13, 2022, an employee operated the "Shredder" line in the "Reclaim Building" with two other coworkers. The "Shredder" is comprised of a conveyor system, a "sorting belt" and an inclined "Titan conveyor", that transports recycled plastic components to the "Republic" Shredder. Normal operation of the "Shredder" line requires approximately three employees; one employee is tasked with operating the "butterfly" forklift to transport cardboard boxes of recycled plastic components (boxes weigh approximately 800-1,200lbs) onto the "sorting belt" where two machine operators are stationed on opposite sides of the line ("control side" and "box side") where they are required to manually sort the recycled plastic components to remove contaminants as the components transfer from the "sorting belt" to the inclined "Titan Conveyor" into the "Republic Shredder". Machine operators manually sort the components while the "Titan conveyor" operates. The employee was attempting to dislodge a plastic "disc" (approximately 15" diameter and 3" thick) that became lodged between the in-running nip points at the outfeed side (bottom belt) of the "sorting conveyor" and the infeed side of the "Titan conveyor" when the middle finger of their left hand became caught between a cleat of the "Titan conveyor" and the material that was lodged at the in-running points of the conveyor system. Employee #1 received open fracture injuries to the middle finger of the left hand, ultimately resulting in partial amputation of bone in the finger. The employee was hospitalized to treat these injuries.