CEO Column

Happy New Year!

I hope each of you and your families had a terrific holidays season.

What types of personal and professional goals have you set for 2023? Although I am not prone to making New Years’ resolutions, I intend to make a conscious effort this year not to interrupt people during meetings and be a better listener.

SWANA’s goals are spelled out in the Forward Together Strategic Plan. The first of the four goals in that plan is to get waste collection workers off the list of the ten most dangerous jobs. Last month, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported the industry’s safety performance improved in 2021 compared to the previous year, and waste collection is now the 7^th most dangerous occupation in the United States (we were 6^th in 2020, and 5^th for several years before that).

The start of a new year provides a terrific opportunity to announce and implement new safety initiatives. What are you and your agency/company doing in 2023 to improve your safety performance? Some possibilities include:

1. New training
2. New safety procedures
3. New equipment

Even something as prosaic as putting new Slow Down to Get Around stickers on the back of your trucks could help prevent a serious injury, or worse.

What is your chapter doing to help SWANA achieve this Strategic Plan goal? More than half of SWANA’s chapters have not held Hauler Safety Outreach events yet. The chapters that have held these terrific events will tell you they are a great way to engage members, speak to non-members about safety, and is a core component of SWANA’s effort to remind everyone in the industry that safety always needs to be the top priority. These events are not difficult to organize, and I encourage all SWANA chapters to hold at least one Hauler Safety Outreach event by the end of Calendar Year 2023. I also encourage chapters to make sure there are safety-related sessions at their 2023 conferences.

Although the improvement reported by BLS is gratifying, this is not the time to take a victory lap. Solid waste collection remains a dangerous job—in both the United States and Canada. And, although there are fewer incidents and injuries in post-collection operations (e.g., transfer stations, landfills, recycling facilities, WTE, composting), each of these facilities also poses substantial occupational hazards for workers. SWANA will continue to lead the industry on safety, and strive to get waste collection workers off the “top 10” list.

Nothing we do is more important. I hope you agree.