Representing safety

During fall 2015, the federal government delivered a series of reports that many waste industry leaders and safety professionals were dreading: the annual report cards on the previous year’s safety performance. Once again, the news wasn’t good, with the trend lines moving in the wrong direction.

Further, the industry has experienced a relentless and steady stream of fatal accidents involving employees and vehicles in the past year, including, tragically, a recent incident in which a motorist drove into and killed two municipal employees loading waste into the back of a truck in Livingston, Tennessee (as reported by Nashville News 2 at http://bit.ly/1HFu4EM).

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) issued its annual workplace fatality report, available at www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cfch0013.pdf, in September 2015. For the second consecutive year, employees collecting waste and recyclables were reported as having the fifth highest worker fatality rate for all occupational categories. In spite of a slight drop in the number of actual employee deaths, the fatality rate for this category of employees increased in 2014 and is now more than 10 times the average fatality rate for all U.S. workers. A disproportionate number of the fatalities occur at small employers—mostly private sector haulers.

About a month later, BLS issued its annual report on workplace injuries and illnesses, available at www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/osh/os/ostb4343.pdf. According to the report, the injury/illness rate for solid waste collection employees increased by more than 10 percent from 2013 to 2014 and is now at its highest level since 2008. The injury/illness rate for material recovery facility (MRF) employees continues to be high—more than double the rate reported as recently as 2010.

The only good news in the BLS report was the slow and steady decline in the injury/illness rate for landfill workers.

INHERENT HAZARDS

It is not surprising that collecting, processing and disposing of trash and recyclables poses a variety of safety hazards. Collecting waste often involves moving or lifting heavy containers, stepping on or off the riding step of a truck, working in traffic that often includes distracted motorists and work in all weather conditions. The waste itself may contain sharp objects that pose a hazard to anyone not wearing proper personal protective equipment (PPE). At all times truck drivers and their helpers must pay attention to avoid accidents or injuries while on the job.

Similar hazards exist at postcollection facilities, such as transfer stations, MRFs and landfills. Good operating practices confine customers and materials to small tipping floors and working places. The combination of trucks and large and small mobile equipment; processing systems, including balers and conveyors with moving parts; and piles of loose waste or stacks of baled materials, all pose health and safety risks.

Despite these numerous hazards, the fatality and injury/illness rates for the industry generally declined from 1999 to 2009 but began to rise again thereafter.

In addition to worker safety, the waste industry needs to be concerned about public safety and awareness. Other drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians are all too often killed or injured in collisions with waste collection vehicles. On average, nearly two people per week are killed in such accidents. In many of these tragic incidents, the driver crossed the center line and collided head-on with a garbage truck or crashed into the back of a stopped collection vehicle.

Although it may take several years to see a decline in the industry’s fatality and injury rates, building the culture, the partnerships and the safety champions throughout the industry must be a top priority for all of us. Nothing we do is more important.

Distracted drivers, speeding drivers and those with medical issues are among the individuals causing accidents that place waste and recycling workers and themselves at risk.

RE-EMPHASIZING SAFETY

The Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA), which represents more than 8,300 individuals in the public and private sector in the U.S. and Canada, originally was established more than 50 years ago to focus on safety issues. Although many topics and issues have come and gone over the years, the BLS statistics confirm that the organization’s concern for worker safety can’t drop from its active focus and in fact must be re-emphasized.

In recognition of this, SWANA has significantly expanded its safety programming in the past year. Some of SWANA’s new initiatives include:

• providing safety-specific webinars;
• expanding the annual Safety Summit held at WASTECON, SWANA’s annual conference, to include more sessions and speakers in larger forums to reach significantly more attendees;
• distributing a weekly safety bulletin via email to all members;
• sharing information about fatalities and related news with chapters;
• supporting the passage of Slow Down to Get Around (SDTGA) laws in Virginia and elsewhere (These laws increase the penalties for motorists who drive into waste collection employees or who do not provide sufficient space for garbage trucks on the route.); and
• distributing SDTGA truck stickers to haulers to help educate motorists, policymakers and the media about this issue related to worker safety.

Some of these efforts are happening in conjunction with the Washington-based National Waste and Recycling Association, www.wasterecycling.org, which also has a long-term commitment to industry safety. The safety of employees and the public is a goal that overrides the considerations of public and private sector competition. To that end, the organizations have formed a joint working group to create common messaging and to elevate attention paid to safety throughout the entire industry.

SAFETY AMBASSADORS

In support of the increased emphasis on safety, SWANA will further expand the scope of its safety program in 2016. The organization recently announced a “safety ambassador” initiative, in which each of our 45 chapters will elect or appoint someone to be its safety ambassador. Each of these individuals will become the point person for safety inquiries, data and training in each of SWANA’s chapters in the United States and Canada. Having a local, knowledgeable resource helps move the emphasis on changing the safety culture—particularly at smaller and public employers—closer to home and increases the likelihood of it being effective.

SWANA will provide its safety ambassadors with training in early 2016 and expects them to have an initial group meeting at WASTECON in Indianapolis in August. More than a dozen SWANA chapters identified their safety ambassadors within a few weeks of the announcement, and most are expected to do so by early January.

In addition, SWANA intends to start collecting and analyzing safety data for the first time. Although the BLS data provide some useful information, they do not provide sufficient guidance to public officials to determine whether municipal safety performance is above or below average and what types of accidents or injuries they need to focus on. SWANA will ask its municipal members to provide 2015 accident and injury data, on a confidential basis, for aggregation and analysis. We expect to circulate a simple survey in the first quarter of 2016.

The contributing members will receive a detailed analysis of the overall results, which will allow them to compare their safety performance to a municipal median or average. We also intend to report on our findings at WASTECON.

I strongly urge SWANA members to participate in this data collection initiative.

Finally, SWANA will start holding regional classroom safety workshops focused on reducing accidents and injuries and improving compliance with applicable laws. The first of these workshops is scheduled for Jan. 21, 2016, at SWANA headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland.

The initial response to SWANA’s new safety initiatives overwhelmingly has been positive. In my visits to chapter conferences and industry events, SWANA members and others concur with and are excited about an increased focus on reducing accidents and injuries.

Although it may take several years to see a decline in the industry’s fatality and injury rates, building the culture, the partnerships and the safety champions throughout the industry must be a top priority for all of us. Nothing we do is more important.

David Biderman is executive director/CEO of SWANA, Silver Spring, Maryland. He can be contacted by phone at 301-585-2898.