Demolition and Scrap Cutting Yard risk assessment (NSW)
56 hazards and 442 controls for scrap metal recyclers, demolition processing yards and salvage operations, already identified and rated. Answer Yes, No or N/A online and download a finished Word report.
Tier 3 · Toxic metallurgy and confined work. 18 activities, 56 hazards, 442 controls.
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The 18 activities in this assessment
Every activity is assessed in three parts — Safety (17 hazards), Process Safety (11) and Occupational Hygiene (28). Untick any activity you do not carry out and it drops out of your assessment.
✓Access to the Demolition and scrap cutting online calculator, tied to the email address used at checkout. Untick any activity you do not carry out and it drops out of your checklist, results and report.
✓A finished Word report (.docx) with every hazard, your answers, the residual risk and your Action Plan already in it — to print, sign and keep with your safety records.
✓The inherent hazard register in Word: every hazard here with what could go wrong, the possible consequence and its starting risk rating, to read before the walk and share with the people you consult.
✓A printable walkthrough checklist for marking by hand on the workshop floor.
What this pack is
Heavy oxy-fuel cutting on unknown scrap, lead-painted structures, and explosion risk from enclosed and unvented tanks and drums.
Each industry here is a complete risk assessment for one kind of workshop, with the hazards and their starting ratings already identified by a Certified Industrial Hygienist. You answer Yes, No or N/A to the controls, and the calculator works out your residual risk, builds the Action Plan and produces the finished report.
Demolition and Scrap Cutting Yard
Workplace risk assessment for scrap metal recyclers, demolition processing yards and salvage operations in New South Wales: 18 activities, 56 hazards and 442 controls across safety, process safety and occupational hygiene. Completed in the online calculator, which works out control scores, residual risk and a prioritised Action Plan and produces a finished Word report to print and sign.
- ✓56 hazards across 18 activities, each with its consequences and starting risk already rated
- ✓442 controls listed for you, ranked by the hierarchy of control — you answer Yes, No or N/A
- ✓Colour-coded residual risk and a prioritised Action Plan, worked out for you
- ✓A finished Word report to print and sign
- ✓The inherent hazard register in Word and a printable walkthrough checklist for the workshop floor
Tier 3 · Toxic metallurgy and confined work. 18 activities, 56 hazards, 442 controls.
Secure checkout via Stripe. Sign in and start as soon as the payment goes through.
Run more than one kind of work? See every industry
The most serious hazards in demolition and scrap cutting
A sample of the 56 hazards in this assessment, each shown with its consequence and the starting risk rating given by a Certified Industrial Hygienist before any controls are counted. The controls themselves are in the calculator.
Explosion of a sealed vessel, drum or hidden gas cylinder; release of asbestos from lagging and linings; lead and chromate from coatings; refrigerant and PCB oil; and, rarely but seriously, dispersal of a radioactive source through the yard and into the furnace, which contaminates the site and everyone who handled it. Occupational Hygiene · inherent risk 5C.
Crush and amputation from the machine; struck-by and crush from the grab and from dropped material; and ejected fragments travelling a considerable distance from the feed opening. Safety · inherent risk 5C.
Pile fire with dense toxic smoke affecting the yard and neighbours; explosion of containers and cylinders within the pile, throwing fragments across the site; and shredder and baler fires that destroy the plant. Process Safety · inherent risk 5B.
Thermal cutting generates fume at rates far above welding, and the composition depends on coatings nobody has identified. Zinc, lead, cadmium, chromium and the decomposition products of organic coatings are all released, and the cutter stands directly in the plume because the work is at ground level and downwind is a matter of chance. Occupational Hygiene · inherent risk 4C.
Chronic manganese exposure causes irreversible neurological injury: tremor, rigidity, impaired balance, cognitive and mood change, resembling parkinsonism. From 1 December 2026 the workplace exposure limit falls from 1 mg/m3 to 0.1 mg/m3 inhalable and 0.02 mg/m3 respirable, a tenfold and fiftyfold tightening. Manganese typically makes up several per cent of mild steel welding fume by mass, so a workshop sitting on the 1 mg/m3 total fume limit can already be at or above the manganese limits. Manganese is normally the first limit a mild steel workshop exceeds, and it is exceeded well before total fume becomes a problem. Occupational Hygiene · inherent risk 4C.
Crush injuries, multiple fractures, fatality. Vehicle and mobile plant incidents are consistently among the leading mechanisms of work-related fatality in Australia. Safety · inherent risk 4C.
Load dropped onto a person: crush injuries, multiple fractures, fatality. Sling angle is the most common miscalculation, because working load limit falls sharply as the included angle opens up. Safety · inherent risk 4C.
Rapidly developing workshop fire, burns, loss of premises and stock, business interruption. Process Safety · inherent risk 4C.
How one hazard is rated
Hazard S1.1 — manual handling of sections, plate and offcuts — starts at 2D, rated before any controls are counted. The calculator lists 8 controls for it, from elimination and extraction at the source down to PPE, monitoring and emergency arrangements. You answer Yes, No or N/A for each on the floor. Once the last one is answered it works out the control score, applies any severity reduction earned by physical controls, and shows the residual risk as RED, YELLOW or GREEN. Every control you answered No to goes into your Action Plan, most urgent and most effective first, ready for a responsible person and a due date.
Oxy-fuel on unknown scrap: the cutting yard exposure story
A scrap yard runs on heavy oxy-fuel cutting of material nobody has characterised. Structural steel from demolition, old tanks, machinery and mixed salvage all arrive carrying coatings, residues and contents that were never declared. Thermal cutting generates fume at rates far above welding, and its composition depends on coatings nobody has identified: zinc, lead, cadmium, chromium and the decomposition products of organic coatings. The cutter stands directly in the plume, because the work is at ground level and downwind is a matter of chance.
Lead-painted structures are the chronic liability, and manganese in the fume adds a neurological one, with the workplace exposure limit falling from 1 mg/m3 to 0.1 mg/m3 inhalable and 0.02 mg/m3 respirable from 1 December 2026. Incoming scrap can also release asbestos from lagging and linings, refrigerant and PCB oil, and, rarely but seriously, a radioactive source dispersed through the yard and into the furnace.
What makes a yard different from a demolition contractor or a fabrication shop is the combination of explosion and machinery. Sealed vessels, drums and hidden gas cylinders explode when cut or when a pile fire reaches them, and grabs, shears, balers and shredders crush, amputate and throw fragments a considerable distance from the feed opening.
What an inspector looks at first in a scrap processing yard
The assessment begins with the processing plant. It asks whether an exclusion zone covers the full slew and drop radius of each grab, physically demarcated and enforced; whether guards, interlocks and emergency stops on shears, balers and shredders are function-tested on a schedule to AS/NZS 4024; whether isolation and lock-out with personal locks happen before any jam clearing, maintenance or entry; and whether ground workers confirm by eye contact or radio before entering an operating area. Clearing a jam or approaching a machine without isolation and personal lock-out is a prohibited practice.
It then turns to incoming material: inspection and segregation at receipt, how vessels and cylinders are found before they reach the cutting area, and how the pile is managed against fire. Lifting gear is checked for tags and inspection records to AS 3775, AS 4497 and AS 2741, and welding and portable electrical equipment for current test tags.
For the cutters, you are asked whether coatings are identified before cutting, whether respiratory protection is matched to lead and metal fume, and whether exposure has ever been measured.
What a scrap yard usually finds on the first pass
Yards often have strong habits around plant and weak systems around what is being cut. The first pass usually shows Yes for hi-vis, basic exclusion signage and extinguishers, and No for identifying coatings before cutting, measuring exposure of the cutters, and a documented receipt inspection that looks for sealed vessels, cylinders and lagging. Settled lead-bearing dust on plant and clothing is rarely addressed.
Top-tier controls that move hazards from yellow to green include physical barriers or bollards separating pedestrians from forklift and grab routes, material handling designed so loads are not swung over people, purpose-made lifting beams and magnet lifters in place of improvised slinging, and a fixed saw or shear in place of hand-held grinding where the material allows it. These weigh more in the score than toolbox talks.
NOT RATED is easy to picture here. A baler jams at the end of a shift and an offsider reaches in to pull the blockage out while the operator waits with the machine still energised. That answer triggers the prohibited practice for mechanical processing, and the hazard stays unscored until isolation and personal lock-out are the only way a jam is cleared.
How your controls are scored
Not generic advice — the specific, hierarchy-of-controls measures written into the pack, matched to how these assets actually fail.
Built for the people who do this work
If you operate, maintain or contract to these assets in NSW, this pack is written for your duties.
- ✓Scrap metal recyclers, demolition processing yards and salvage operations
- ✓Owners and managers who need a risk assessment that stands up to a SafeWork NSW visit
- ✓Safety coordinators covering several workshops or several trades
- ✓Workshops whose insurer, principal contractor or client has asked for a documented assessment
- ✓Trainers and supervisors inducting apprentices onto workshop hazards
Authored to the codes and the law
The Codes of Practice and Australian Standards these documents are measured against, and the legislation behind them.
- §Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW)
- §Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025 (NSW)
- §Workplace exposure standards for airborne contaminants (Safe Work Australia)
- §AS 1674.1 and AS 1674.2 — Safety in welding and allied processes
- §AS/NZS 1715 and AS/NZS 1716 — Selection, use and maintenance of respiratory protective equipment
Frequently asked questions
Add an in-house CIH risk assessment review
Complete your risk assessment using our digital engine, then have our in-house Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIH) and Full Member of the Australian Institute of Occupational Hygienists (MAIOH) review your specific results to ensure bulletproof compliance.
Post-completion expert review
Not sure if you categorised your site’s controls correctly? Complete your online assessment and send us the generated report. Our in-house experts will review your residual risk scores, validate your “N/A” selections, and ensure your action plan adequately addresses your highest liabilities (like hexavalent chromium or LEL environments) before you sign off.
- Scope
- Remote CIH and MAIOH review of your completed calculator report and hazard register.
- Turnaround
- 3–5 business days.
- Pricing
- Remote review is billed at an hourly rate of $250 AUD/hour (total quote based on the number of sections reviewed).
Walk it, answer it, sign it.
The calculator generates a finished, fully formatted .docx record with your Action Plan already inside it. Print it, sign it off, and you are audit-ready for this workshop.
Price in AUD, no GST charged · Jurisdiction: New South Wales — WHS Act 2011, WHS Regulation 2025 and SafeWork NSW Codes of Practice applied
This is a generic risk assessment for a typical workshop of this kind, to support your due diligence — completing it is not compliance in itself. You must answer it for your own site, consult your workers, put the missing controls in place, and get competent advice where it says so — exposure monitoring, for example, is work for an occupational hygienist. The limits are set out at the front of every report.