Solution Summary: Bucket Dolly
A bucket dolly is a cart that allows workers to roll buckets and their contents reducing the need to lift and carry.
Description:
The bucket dolly is an engineering control that may help reduce lifting and carrying, as well as stressful hand and wrist activity. A bucket can quickly be mounted into a bucket dolly, allowing workers to move the bucket and its contents around the worksite on wheels rather than by lifting and carrying heavy containers.
The typical bucket dolly consists of a surface to place a bucket and a set of wheels mounted to the bottom. There are several types of bucket dollies.
The Grit Guard Bucket Dolly features a thick plastic base and walls that are several inches high with built-in thumbscrews that can adjust to secure buckets of various sizes (Figure 1). Each bucket dolly has 5 wheels of either 2-inch or 3-inch diameter that can lock into place. This product works best with 3½ and 5 gallon buckets. The Original Bucket Dolly can hold over 350 lbs.
Figure 1. Grit Guard Bucket Dolly. (Photo courtesy of Grit Guard)
Risks Addressed:
Heavy lifting and carrying can cause low back disorders, such as muscle strain or a disc herniation (“slipped disc”), which is bulging of disc material possibly pressing on the spinal cord or nerves that go into the leg. The bucket dolly can help reduce heavy lifting and carrying by allowing workers to move buckets around work sites on wheels.
Stressful hand and wrist activity can cause musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) such as muscle strains; tendonitis, which is inflammation of elbow and wrist tendons. The bucket dolly can help reduce stressful hand and wrist activity by minimizing the need for workers to grip tightly onto thin bucket handles.
How Risks are Reduced:
A bucket dolly reduces heavy lifting and carrying and stressful hand and wrist activity because it minimizes the need for workers to carry heavy buckets around the work site. Instead, workers can push or pull buckets without needing to take on the entire weight of heavy containers.
Safety and health experts believe the bucket dolly will help to reduce MSDs caused by lifting, carrying, and stressful hand and wrist activities because they reduce the need to carry heavy buckets around the work site. Health and safety experts have found strong evidence that lifting and carrying around the work place can cause MSDs such as low back pain (Marras 2000). By putting buckets and their contents on a bucket dolly, workers simply need to push or pull the bucket to get it from point A to point B. Bucket handles have been shown to cause MSDs of the hands and wrists because of their less than optimal gripping diameter (Bhattacharya 1996). The bucket dolly reduces stress on the hands and wrist because workers do not have to support the entire weight of the bucket with their hands.
Effects on Productivity:
A bucket dolly may increase productivity by decreasing worker fatigue
Contributors:
Dan Anton, PT, PhD, ATC; Seidl, Liz – Eastern Washington University
Hazards Addressed:
- Residential Construction
- Paint interior and exterior walls, ceilings, trim, etc.
Availability
Grit Guard
To obtain information, visit Bucket Dolly
or contact 1-866-592-5925 sales@gritguard.com
Bucket Dolly
To obtain information, visit Bucket Dolly Inc.
or contact 1-954-429-0709
