AN AYRSHIRE waste recycling firm has been fined for serious safety failings after an agency worker severed his left arm at the shoulder while clearing a conveyor belt blockage.

Steven Dawson, then aged 28, was working as a line supervisor for Lowmac Alloys at its premises when the incident happened on February 8 2011, a court heard on Monday.

Mr Dawson was separating plastic and paper by hand on the conveyor belt when he was alerted to a problem with the conveyor belt and noticed a metal container had caught on the edge of the conveyor belt’s pulley.

He opened an unsecured hinged guard to access the blockage, but when he attempted to remove the container his left hand and arm came into contact with the moving belt and the bottom of the pulley — resulting in his arm being severed at the shoulder.

HSE inspector Mark Carroll said the “entirely preventable” has left Mr Dawson with a “life-changing injury.”