The Rubber Industry Advisory Committee (RUBIAC) Action Plan launched in June 1999 assisted the tyre, retread and general rubber goods sectors of the rubber industry to deliver an improved health and safety performance. This resulted in the achievement of a 34% reduction in its RIDDOR incident rate. To consolidate this improvement and to deliver improvements in health and safety performance across the wider rubber industry The RUBIAC Health & Safety Strategy 2006-09 “Rubbing Out Risks” [118kb] strategy was launched in April 2006.

The rubber manufacturing industry remains largely a traditional, heavy industry: the main production techniques and processing machinery have changed little over the past 30 – 40 years although there has been a continuous development in rubber chemistry. Recent years have seen the growth in the use of engineering thermoplastics that are replacing rubber in certain applications. The new industries represented on RUBIAC are largely small and medium sized firms. In total RUBIAC now extends its influence to around 1000 firms employing over 70000 people.

Key health & safety issues include:

1. Manual handling and musculoskeletal disorders
   Manual handling is the biggest cause of reportable accidents in the rubber industry.
2. Slips and Trips
   Accidents from slips, trips and falls on the same level are the second biggest cause of reportable accidents in the rubber industry.
3. Machinery
   The industry uses very powerful machinery with the potential to cause fatal and serious injury. There are well-established industry safeguarding standards for two-roll mills, internal mixers and calenders.
4. Occupational Health: Rubber Dust and Fume
   Historically there was an excess of bladder cancer in rubber industry workers associated with the antioxidant beta-naphthylamine, which was banned in the 1950s. However, in 2001 RUBIAC reviewed the evidence on occupational cancers in the rubber industry and published a statement clarifying the position. This statement was updated in 2007.
5. Noise
   Noise levels at heavy mixing machinery in particular often exceed 85dB(A)