Skip Bin SWMS

For skip bin businesses and their drivers. It follows the job from planning the placement and checking the truck and lifting gear through reversing, hooking and lifting the bin, placing it, dealing with customers, collecting and restraining the load, and tipping at the disposal site. Hook lift truck operation is covered by a separate SWMS.

Delivering and collecting skip bins is not high risk construction work by itself, so no item is pre-ticked and WHS Regulation s 299 requires a SWMS only for high risk construction work; this document works as a written safe work procedure or task risk assessment that you tailor to your operation. If the work forms part of construction work, tick the items that apply, for example movement of powered mobile plant, a road in use by traffic or energised electrical services.

New to SWMS? Read What Is A Safe Work Method Statement?

What Is Covered In Our Skip Bin SWMS?

After the standard pre-start checks, the job steps run from “Plan the job and check the site” to “Clean down, report defects and finish the shift”. The hazards and controls include:

• Reversing and the public near the truck
• Chain, hook or lug failure dropping a bin
• Crush and pinch injuries to hands
• Dogging work and the lifting gear
• Truck instability on soft or sloping ground
• Contact with overhead power lines
• Bin movement or tipping after placement
• Bins on roads and footpaths
• Strains from loading waste by hand
• Sharps, asbestos and unsuitable waste
• Overloaded bins and load restraint
• Aggressive or abusive customers
• Driver fatigue
• Hydraulic leaks and injection injuries

High Risk Construction Work

None of the high risk construction work items (WHS Regulation 2011 (Qld) s 291) are pre-ticked, because this job is not high risk construction work by itself. Tick any that apply on your site.

Licences, Training and Competency

• Driver licence of the class that covers the truck’s gross vehicle mass and configuration
• Training and verification of competency on the truck’s lifting system, chains and hooks, controls, winch or tilt frame and the bins used, recorded by the PCBU
• Dogging licence (WHS Regulation Schedule 3 item 4 and s 81) for any person doing dogging work as Schedule 19 defines it; the step on attaching the chains quotes the definition, and the PCBU decides from it and the truck maker’s instructions whether any step of skip bin loading is dogging work
• No Schedule 3 high risk work licence class names a skip loader truck; a vehicle loading crane (a crane mounted on a vehicle for loading and unloading it) with a capacity of 10 metre tonnes or more needs its Schedule 3 licence class (item 13)
• Training in the heavy vehicle law duties that apply to the driver and loader for a vehicle over 4.5 t GVM or ATM: loading, mass and fatigue (Heavy Vehicle National Law)
• Training in hazardous manual tasks and in handling chains, hooks and sharps
• Spotter training on signals and the exclusion zone for reversing and lifting
• Training in handling aggressive customers: calm communication, backing away and reporting
• General construction induction training card (white card) when delivering to or collecting from a construction site, and the site’s induction
• First aid equipment and trained first aiders suited to the work (WHS Regulation s 42)

Legislation and Codes of Practice Referenced

• Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Qld)
• Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011 (Qld)
• WHS Regulation 2011 (Qld) ss 207, 208, 210, 213 to 215: plant not in use, guarding, operational controls, maintenance and inspection of plant, and powered mobile plant general and specific controls
• WHS Regulation 2011 (Qld) s 219: plant that lifts or suspends loads
• WHS Regulation 2011 (Qld) ss 56 and 57: noise exposure standard and managing hearing loss
• WHS Regulation 2011 (Qld) ss 60 and 78: hazardous manual tasks and risk of a fall
• WHS Regulation 2011 (Qld) chapter 8: asbestos
• Heavy Vehicle National Law (Queensland), applied by the Heavy Vehicle National Law Act 2012 (Qld): s 6 (heavy vehicle means a vehicle with a GVM or ATM of more than 4.5 t), s 26C (primary duty of each party in the chain of responsibility), s 96 (compliance with mass requirements), s 110 (national regulations may prescribe loading requirements), s 111 (compliance with the loading requirements) and s 228 (duty of driver to avoid driving while fatigued or unfit to drive)
• A skip loader truck is a heavy vehicle only where it has a GVM or ATM of more than 4.5 t, or the combination includes such a vehicle: the Heavy Vehicle National Law line above applies only then (HVNL s 6(1) and (2))
• Managing Risks of Plant in the Workplace Code of Practice 2021
• Hazardous Manual Tasks Code of Practice 2021
• Managing the Risk of Falls at Workplaces Code of Practice 2021
• Managing Noise and Preventing Hearing Loss at Work Code of Practice 2021
• How to Manage and Control Asbestos in the Workplace Code of Practice 2021
• First Aid in the Workplace Code of Practice 2021
• How to Manage Work Health and Safety Risks Code of Practice 2021
• Managing the risk of psychosocial hazards at work Code of Practice 2022
• Electrical Safety Act 2002 (Qld)
• Electrical Safety Regulation 2026 (Qld): overhead power line exclusion zones in sections 10 to 13 and schedule 2
• Electrical Safety Code of Practice 2020 – Working near overhead and underground electric lines (distances come from the Electrical Safety Regulation 2026)

What You Get

• An editable Microsoft Word document (16 A4 landscape pages). Type your business, client and job details once and they fill in on every page, with a space for your logo
• 10 job steps for this work, each with its hazards, controls, initial and residual risk scores and the person responsible
• PPE listed for this job: safety boots; high-visibility clothing; cut-resistant gloves for chains, hooks and waste; safety glasses
• Emergency arrangements for: power line contact (general guidance), truck tip-over or dropped bin and chain or hook failure with a person trapped or struck
• Plus the parts every Work Safety QLD SWMS shares, from the s 291 checklist to the worker sign-on sheet (see the layout in our free SWMS template)

Adjust it for your site, plant and crew, and talk it through with your workers before work starts. Please make sure you read our Disclaimer before downloading this SWMS.

Checked against the Queensland laws and codes of practice listed above. Last reviewed November 2026.