OSHA Fines East Brunswick Salvage Yard Where Man Was Killed

EAST BRUNSWICK, NJ — An East Brunswick salvage yard known as Atlantic Sales & Salvage — where an employee was crushed to death in December — was fined over $93,000 from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Patch has learned.

Universal Processing, LLC, which does business as Atlantic Sales & Salvage, is a non-union salvage yard located at 21 Edgeboro Road in East Brunswick Township. Its website says they sell used car parts to Africa and the Caribbean. At 10:30 a.m. on December 12, 2016, an employee was clearing a jam of cardboard in a compactor at the yard. The machine suddenly turned on. Alvaro Esteban, a 22-year-old Freehold man, was crushed to death and killed. Esteban was pronounced dead at the scene.

After Esteban's death, the site was investigated by OSHA, and the federal safety agency found at least a dozen serious safety violations on the property. The yard was issued several $8,000 and $12,000 fines for the improper servicing and maintenance of machines, which could start up and harm employees, OSHA found.

OSHA completed their investigation and issued the fines June 7.

You can read all of OSHA's findings from their inspection of Atlantic Sales & Salvage in their full report, which is a public document.

Past Patch reporting: Man ID'd Who Was Crushed at East Brunswick Salvage Yard

Wikimedia Commons image/Junked cars stored at an auto scrapyard photographed in Fort Washington, Maryland, USA/Source: IFCAR/All Rights Released