SPRINGFIELD, MA - The Paperboard Packaging Council recently announced that Caraustar's Pineville, NC plant has earned the association’s top plant safety designation—the Chairman’s Safety Award—for accumulating 846,700 hours without an OSHA recordable incident during 2015. PPC will present this honor on April 28, 2016 at a special ceremony during its Spring Meeting in Miami, FL.
 
PPC recognizes member companies’ safety milestones as a part of its monthly Safety Boxscore Report, a benchmarking program that allows participating members to measure their safety records relative to their peers so that they may determine if safety improvements are warranted. The report includes injury statistics, group incident statistics, and the Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred (DART) rate.
 
“To log over 800,000 hours without an OSHA incident clearly demonstrates a commitment to employee safety and wellbeing,” said Brian Chaisson, PPC Director of Industry Benchmarking. “I am honored to recognize Caraustar for just such a critical commitment.”
 
John Murphy, Caraustar’s Vice President of Operations for their Consumer Packaging Division explained their approach to operational safety: “Caraustar understands that our employees are our most valuable resource, and that we must do everything possible to protect them from harm. We continuously focus on and leverage best practices in a number of key areas including energy isolation, hand safety, slip/trip/fall hazards, interactions between powered industrial trucks and employees, new employee training, and non-routine tasks.  We strive to get every employee involved in our safety program and to take ownership of their own safety and the safety of everyone they work with.” 
 
“While we are in the consumer packaging business, we are also in the business of keeping our employees safe,” said Dean Dietrich, Vice President at Caraustar. “The Chairman’s Award is a testament to the dedication of our Pineville, NC associates and a cause for celebrating their outstanding safety record.”   
 
In addition to honoring Caraustar with the Chairman’s Safety Award during Spring Meeting, PPC will also recognize other member companies for 125,000, 250,000, 500,000, and 750,000 hours worked with no OSHA recordable injuries, as well as twelve-month awards for working the entire calendar year without injury.