Published by the Florida Center for Solid and Hazardous Waste Management, figures cited in a 2000 study on health and safety risks for refuse collection workers placed the job of municipal solid waste collector seventh on a list of the most hazardous occupations, ranked up there with such notoriously dangerous jobs as lumberjack and miner.

“Maybe to the public it’s a reminder, but anyone who works this job is reminded every day how dangerous it is ... I guess people don’t realize: you have reckless drivers racing by you all the time.”—Veteran New York City sanitation worker Andy Roth, quoted in the New York Times after the death, in 2004, of a coworker who was crushed by the lifting lever on her front-loading collection vehicle.

By Amy R. Ramos

What workers like Andy Roth know from experience is borne out by studies: More than half the workers surveyed for the study listed “carelessly passing motorists” as a main cause of injuries, while more than a third cited “lack of visibility around trucks” as a major reason. Indeed, according to NIOSH, two-thirds of the 450 refuse collection workers who died in work-related accidents between 1980 and 1992 were killed in vehicle-related incidents.

As the surveyed workers indicated, visibility is a major issue in vehicle accidents—it’s hard for drivers to avoid what they can’t see. The issue presents a dual concern to workers: for those on foot, avoiding being struck by a passing motorist or a piece of equipment; and for those driving, not hitting a colleague or member of the public with the vehicle. As with any safety hazard, the issue of visibility can be addressed using the classic multi-pronged approach of implementing appropriate engineering and administrative controls, adopting sound work practices, and using personal protective gear. Because a substantial amount of refuse collection work takes place on public streets, the behavior of members of the public is a significant variable in the safety equation, prompting one company to launch a public education campaign as well.

Lights, Camera...Safety!
The 2000 study by the Florida Center cited blind spots on trucks as a significant safety concern, and suggested increased use of side-loading vehicles, “to reduce the incidence of workers pinned against trucks by passing motorists and being backed over by the collection vehicle.” Of course, there’s often a gap between recommendations made by academics and what seems practical in an operational setting. Will Flower, vice president at Republic Services Inc., of Fort Lauderdale, FL, points out that side-loading trucks can’t be used in all environments, such as alleys. Bill Cole, president of Waste Management Safety Services LLC, agrees:

Landfill safety measures may vary.

Multiple cameras and monitors may enhance collection safety.

The truck has to fit the application.” However, improving visibility around trucks presents an excellent opportunity for use of engineering controls such as lights, mirrors, and camera systems.

Flashing or strobe lighting is common on refuse collection vehicles, but Rumpke Consolidated Companies Inc., which operates waste and recycling operations in three Midwestern states, specifies lighting on its collection vehicles that illuminates the area where the driver is working, to help passing motorists see the driver in low-visibility conditions. Safety director Larry Stone says what he’d really like to have is headlights that dim automatically when the truck is stopped, to reduce the blinding effect on oncoming drivers.

Approaching the problem from the other end, the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation decided it needed to extend visibility around its collection vehicles to help its drivers reduce the number of accidents. The bureau operates a fleet of more than 700 vehicles, most of which are right-side drive, automated side-loaders. “It’s not uncommon,” says Superintendent Rick Spang with some wonder in his voice, “for someone to dash in front of our trucks with a bag of trash.” To help drivers see 3–4 feet in front of the bumper and thus avoid any unfortunate encounters with pedestrians, standard equipment on the trucks now includes a convex mirror on the left side.

Specifications for the city of L.A.’s collection vehicles also call for three SilverState Safety Image cameras, two of which are considered safety features: one at front left to assist the driver in merging safely with traffic, as well as a backup camera (the third camera allows the driver to monitor items going into the hopper to prevent contaminants from entering the recycling stream). Waste Management uses multiple cameras on some of its trucks as well—mounting two backup cameras, for example, on some of its front-loading trucks that may have to back out of blind alleys. Republic Services, which operates 140 hauling companies in 21 states, is also convinced of the value of camera systems, which it has installed on nearly all its trucks and has ordered as standard equipment—from both Intec and Safety Vision—on all new trucks since 2002. Flower, the vice president, touts the company’s 17% reduction in all incidents (defined as a general liability claim, workers’ compensation claim, in-house claim, or any injury to a worker or member of the public) from 2004 to 2005, even while Republic’s employee population increased slightly. He cautions, however, that the impressive drop can’t be attributed to use of backup cameras or any other single strategy. What’s most important, Flower maintains, is to “create and instill a culture of safety.”

Jeremy O’Brien, director of applied research at SWANA, concurs: “Workplace policies are as important” as equipment like backup cameras in keeping refuse collection workers safe, he says.

A hopper cmaera improves the driver's awareness of the truck's contents.

The greatest emphasis of many safety programs is that of employee training.

That means minimizing opportunities for vehicle–pedestrian accidents in a number of ways, using a variety of engineering and administrative controls. In 2001, Republic reviewed all its routes and redesigned them, implementing right-hand routing. This technique, pioneered by the US Postal Service, involves trucks collecting all the trash on the right-hand side of the street, then returning to collect all the trash on the other side, now on the driver’s right hand. Although the primary objective of adopting right-hand routing was to increase efficiency, it had the added benefit of improving safety by eliminating the need for collection personnel to crisscross busy streets, thus keeping them out of the roadway and less vulnerable to being hit by a vehicle. Republic trucks are outfitted with dual controls, so the compactor can be operated from the right-hand side. Waste Management Inc., while not eliminating the practice altogether, has placed limits on the practice of “double-siding.” According to Cole, workers are permitted to collect from both sides of the street only in full daylight and in residential areas with a speed limit under 20 mph and no painted dividing lines on the pavement. In Los Angeles, which Spang says has had a long-standing policy of collecting from only one side of the street at a time, the sanitation bureau’s substantial use of automation keeps drivers, for the most part, inside the vehicle.

At landfills, where the hazards differ somewhat from street collection, safety measures also vary. At some of Republic’s landfills, the company minimizes the number of people in the loading area by requiring helpers to wait in the scalehouse—away from the hazards of the work zone—if the employee is not needed to help load a vehicle. Rumpke has eliminated the use of spotters at its landfills because of the hazards associated with that assignment, says safety director Stone. Republic has not abolished its own spotter positions but has adopted some measures to increase safety, such as not having them stand behind trucks and—at some of their landfills—placing spotters on an elevated lifeguard-type stand for increased visibility. Cole says Waste Management must use spotters at some of its facilities where they are required by the terms of their operating permit but that the company tries to “engineer spotters out of harm’s way,” whether that means placing the spotter in a pickup truck or—during frigid Canadian winters—in a small house that gets towed around the landfill depending where the working face is. To improve communication between vehicle operators and those on the ground, all three companies encourage the use of two-way radios.

One common strategy used to minimize the number of “civilians” in the active work zone is to set up areas where members of the public can deposit items without entering the working face of the landfill. Rumpke calls them “yard boxes” while Republic labels them “drop-off convenience centers.” The city of Los Angeles designates special areas of its district yards for residents disposing of bulky items such as furniture or appliances. Regardless of nomenclature, this practice provides the dual benefit of protecting nonemployees from the hazards of the active work zone and preventing them from creating hazards for landfill employees.

RESOPs, Not Fables
Promotion of safe work practices is a major element of any holistic approach to solving visibility issues. Therefore, the greatest emphasis of Republic’s safety program is on employee training. Its drivers, for example, are trained to keep their helpers in sight at all times. If a helper disappears from the driver’s view, the driver is to stop the truck. As Flower notes, however, “It’s easy to be safe for 10 minutes,” but much harder to employ safe work practices for an entire shift, day after day. Spang notes that operational priorities may sometimes win out over safety concerns—which is why he took his safety and training division staff out of operations three years ago and moved them into the human resources development unit. Since then, he estimates, the bureau has enjoyed a 25–30% decrease in accidents and incidents, a reduction he attributes to the staffing change. Among the new initiatives implemented is a required four-week training program for new drivers, to ensure that all employees receive the proper orientation from the beginning. The bureau is also considering raising the employment standard for drivers, requiring experience driving vehicles with a gross vehicle weight of 28,000 pounds or more, in the hope that more experienced drivers will also be safer workers.

Side screens allow drivers to monitor blind spots.

To ensure that workers don’t forget or ignore the lessons learned in orientation and safety training, regular monitoring by supervisors to reinforce safety practices is typical. The city of L.A. requires supervisors to spend considerable time in the field interacting with customers and observing drivers. Republic requires reviews of safe operating procedures (RESOPs), in which managers watch drivers and helpers on their routes, pointing out what they’re doing right as well as what safety practices need improvement. To make it clear that safety is a priority throughout the organization, every Republic area president must participate in a RESOP quarterly. Rumpke has a similar program, mandating that 10% of the fleet must be observed by the supervisor every week to ensure that workers are following established safety practices.

Some safety practices will vary, though, depending on the needs of the organization. One example is the question of whether to allow collection workers who finish their routes early to go home with full pay. According to the study by the Florida Center, doing so may provide an incentive for workers to hurry and thus cut corners when it comes to safety. Republic doesn’t allow this practice, requiring employees finishing early to contact their supervisor, who may dispatch them to help crews who are running behind. Rumpke, on the other hand, permits workers to leave early. Safety director Stone says that if workers are shortchanging safety in order to work a shorter day, this is typically symptomatic of a larger problem of sloppy work—which the supervisor should pick up on during the required weekly monitoring of the fleet.

Vest-Dressed
According to OSHA, personal protective gear may be critical, but it should be regarded as “the last line of defense after engineering controls, work practices, and administrative controls.” Perhaps one reason is that personal protective equipment may inadvertently present safety issues of its own—as can be the case with high-visibility clothing. Ironically, although the purpose of those neon-hued, reflective shirts and vests is to make workers safer, Stone ruefully acknowledges, “Those vests get caught in everything.”

Personal protective gear is a critical part of the job.

Nevertheless, he says, some workers prefer vests to other high-visibility apparel, so Rumpke makes vests as well as other high-visibility clothing available. Spang says his workers are taught the dangers of loose clothing and are instructed to wear their vests snug, using the straps and Velcro closures to adjust them properly. Cole says most of the vests used by Waste Management are the “breakaway” type, designed to tear off if they snag on machinery or other objects; the company also encourages employees, during hot summer months, to wear high-visibility t-shirts made of a fabric that wicks away perspiration, improving comfort.

Republic also incorporates high-visibility features directly into employee uniforms, ordering them in a bright color like orange or yellow with reflective strips sewn right in.

Gear and devices such as high-visibility clothing, special lighting, and cameras are useful tools in preventing injuries caused by vehicles, but they’re most effective when used as part of an overall safety plan that includes training and supervision, minimizing opportunities for vehicle–pedestrian accidents, and encouraging the motoring public to do its part to reduce the hazards faced by refuse collection workers.

Amy R. Ramos is a journalist based in Santa Barbara, CA.

MSW - September/October 2006