For landscaping contractors
Landscaping safety file
Cutting equipment, chemicals and long days in the South African sun.
Generate your safety file — R500What the law requires
There is no separate safety file law for landscaping contractors. The Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993 and the Construction Regulations 2014 are national and trade-neutral — they apply to landscaping work exactly as they apply to every other trade on a South African site, with no minimum project size exemption.
What changes with the trade is the content. The regulations require the file to reflect the work actually being carried out, so the risk assessments, method statements, appointments and registers in a landscaping file are driven by the hazards landscaping contractors actually create.
Why a landscaping file is different
Landscaping is treated as low-risk work and produces a steady stream of serious injuries. Brushcutters and chainsaws throw debris and cut deeply, herbicides and pesticides are regulated chemicals, and heat exposure over a full working day in a South African summer is a genuine physiological risk rather than a discomfort.
What to get right in a landscaping safety file
These are the hazards that should be reflected properly in the risk assessments and method statements — the parts of the file that are easiest to leave generic and hardest to defend when they are.
Cutting equipment and thrown objects
Brushcutters throw stones and metal at high speed toward the operator and anyone nearby, and chainsaw injuries are severe when they happen. Guarding, exclusion distances, face and leg protection, and operator competence records are the controls that belong in the file.
Herbicides and pesticides
Agricultural and horticultural chemicals are hazardous chemical agents, with safety data sheets, mixing controls, storage requirements and re-entry intervals attached. Decanting into unmarked containers is the practice that causes most of the harm and the one a file should explicitly prohibit.
Heat and ultraviolet exposure
A full day outdoors through a South African summer carries real heat stress and cumulative UV exposure. Shade, water, rest scheduling and sun protection are cheap controls that almost never appear in a risk assessment, which is exactly why they are worth writing into one.
Also governed by: Hazardous Chemical Agents Regulations 2021
Herbicides and pesticides carry safety data sheet, storage, exposure and worker information duties.
Documents a landscaping scope typically triggers
On top of the core compliance pack every construction file carries, landscaping contractors should expect to need these. The exact set depends on your scope.
- —Hazardous chemical management procedure, policy and substances checklist; chemicals received register
- —Hand tools and grinding checklists; hand tool operation method statement
- —General machinery supervisor appointment (GMR 2.1) and machine and equipment policy
- —Training register for operator competencies
- —PPE issue register — face shields, gloves
- —Safety data sheets for herbicides and pesticides
*Items marked * are records you obtain from third parties and file alongside the documents MySafetyFile generates.
Do landscapers working on a construction site need a safety file?
Yes. Landscaping is usually the last trade on a build, and by then the principal contractor's file discipline is established and access is controlled. Arriving without a file is a common reason for a crew to be turned away in the final week of a project, when the programme has the least slack in it.
More background: what a construction safety file is and what a compliant template must contain.
Get your landscaping safety file in 8 minutes
MySafetyFile generates a complete, site-specific construction safety file — drawn from a library of 351 documents across 9 categories — in about 8 minutes for R500. Register free, enter your project and scope, and download a file that is ready to print or submit. There is no monthly fee, and one account handles unlimited projects.
Every document is aligned with the OHS Act and Construction Regulations 2014, developed by a SAIOSH-registered practitioner, and carries a unique identification code that ties it to the account and project it was generated for.