DALTON, Ga. — A Dalton business with a history of federal workplace safety violations is in the news again after a nearly half a ton of material reportedly fell on a worker Thursday morning. 

According to Whitfield County 911, a call came in at 11:21 a.m. reporting that a bale of material “weighing up to 1,000 pounds” had fallen on a worker at Columbia Recycling at 1001 Chattanooga Ave. Fire and emergency medical services personnel responded and the worker was taken for treatment.  

Calls to company president Robert Goldberg were not immediately returned Thursday afternoon. Phillip Goldberg, who is listed as a contact on the company’s webpage on recycleamp.com, declined to provide any details of the incident. He also would not name the worker.

“No comment at this time,” Phillip Goldberg said. “He is fine. No comment. Bye.”

In November 2016, Columbia Recycling agreed to pay the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) a settlement payment of $250,000 after the agency fined the company more than $300,000.

OSHA cited Columbia Recycling’s facility at 2410 S. Dixie Highway in October 2016 for five repeated, three serious and one other-than-serious safety and health violations. Acting on a complaint, the agency started an inspection on April 26. The serious citations related to improper storage of compressed gas cylinders, not ensuring an employee successfully completed training to operate a powered industrial truck and not allowing sufficient access and working space around electrical equipment.

At the time of the settlement, Robert Goldberg declined to discuss the specifics of the violations but said, “Columbia Recycling is definitely proactive when it comes to safety.”

“We are a safe environment. We have been in Dalton since 1970, but we started out in Philadelphia 100 years ago,” he said at the time. “We have meetings every day on safety.”

The Chattanooga Avenue facility has been plagued by fires in the past with firefighters responding to flames in 2007, 2010, 2011 and 2012. The 2007 fire resulted in the death of a line supervisor, two employee injuries and a $41,400 fine from OSHA, which cited Columbia Recycling for 11 serious safety violations.