Safety
Our activities involve working with large, heavy equipment and with explosives and chemicals, sometimes at extreme temperatures. We also face normal industrial hazards such as driving vehicles, working at heights and operating machinery with dangerous moving parts.
But, despite all that, we believe that all injuries and fatalities are preventable and have identified this as a key performance indicator for the Group. While we have one of the best records in the industry, we have committed ourselves to creating an injury free workplace where everyone, employees, contractors and visitors alike, go home safe and healthy each day.
In line with our Safety policy and associated standards, we have developed and implemented a number of practical safety management programmes.
- Sustainable safety
- Approach
- Systems
- Results
Regrettably we did not meet our goal of zero fatalities in 2009. Four people were fatally injured while working at Rio Tinto managed operations. The fatal incidents occurred at the Lugo di Vicenza aluminium packaging operation in Italy, the Palabora copper mine and the Richards Bay Minerals titanium dioxide feedstock mine in South Africa, and at the Awaso bauxite mine in Ghana.
We have thoroughly investigated each of these incidents, and communicated and are continuing to act upon the lessons learned. We continue to provide support and counselling to the families affected by these incidents.
We measure progress toward our goal of zero injuries through the all injury frequency rate (AIFR) which includes data for employees and contractors. At the end of 2009 our AIFR was 0.82, an improvement of 16 per cent from 2008. Over the last five years we have reduced our AIFR by 46 per cent. Our lost time injury frequency rate has also improved and was 0.43 per 200,000 hours worked in 2009.
Use, reuse, recycle - our tyre strategy
- A recent global shortage of heavy mobile equipment tyres led Rio Tinto to form a taskforce that would look for opportunities to preserve a tyre's use at every stage of its life.
- See all "Our approach" features
Video
Project Daybreak
This video outlines Project Daybreak a project built on an old mine that is a social project aimed at sustainable development and building a sense of community.
