SWANA launches Hauler Safety Toolkit

The Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA), Silver Spring, Maryland, announced June 25 that it has launched a Hauler Safety Toolkit to be handed out to solid waste haulers throughout North America to ensure that safety resources are available to companies and municipalities of all sizes.

The Toolkit brings together valuable safety resources into a simple, shareable form that SWANA chapters intend to use at Hauler Safety Outreach events. These one-day events are designed to get safety messaging directly into the hands of drivers when they bring material to landfills, transfer stations, waste-to-energy facilities, materials recovery facilities and other sites.

The Toolkit was developed by the SWANA chapter safety ambassadors, which are safety leaders within each of the SWANA chapters.

“The SWANA Hauler Safety Toolkit is a great resource to touch drivers, helpers, supervisors and managers in the waste industry, and sends a consistent safety message to all industry professionals,” James Profitt, assistant manager of operations at Montgomery County Solid Waste Services, Moraine, Ohio, and SWANA’s safety ambassador for Ohio, says. “I plan to work with landfills, transfer stations and MRFs in Ohio to provide a consistent message about safety along with some specific rules and regulations for each disposal site.”

SWANA safety ambassadors will take the lead in distributing the Toolkit during Hauler Safety Outreach days throughout the U.S. and Canada during the rest of 2018. In addition to providing safety resources, drivers and haulers will also be asked to take the SWANA Safety Pledge. This pledge commits them, in part, “to help everyone get home safe every single day” and to “consider worker, customer and public safety in every decision.”

SWANA has discussed this outreach initiative with safety leaders at the largest solid waste companies in North America and has received overwhelming support for this effort.

"At Republic, we are excited to support SWANA’s efforts to reach haulers directly with safety resources," Jim Olson, senior vice president, safety at Phoenix-based Republic Services, says. "It is the responsibility of everyone in this industry to make sure workers get home safely every day."By designing the Toolkit and outreach events aimed directly at haulers of all sizes, SWANA hopes to reduce the rate of injuries and fatalities for collection workers, who currently have the fifth highest occupational fatality rate in the United States.

The Hauler Safety Toolkit and SWANA Safety Pledge can be viewed on the Safety Matters webpage.