News
CEO Column
March 12, 2020
SWANA Safety Efforts
By: David Biderman, SWANA CEO & Executive Director
The past month has seen the spread of the coronavirus in the United States and Canada. As SWANA monitors closely this serious and evolving public health issue, I urge all members to follow basic hygiene reminders, including:
- Wash your hands frequently with soap and water
- Cover your nose/mouth when you cough or sneeze
- Use hand sanitizer on frequently touched objects and surfaces
- Don’t touch your face
- If you have a cold, stay home
SWANA has become the safety leader for the solid waste and recycling industry, and we continue to expand our safety program and resources in our efforts to reduce the frequency of accidents and injuries. A recent trip to a SWANA conference in Utah confirms that we are moving in the right direction.
The SWANA Utah chapter held a regional conference in southern Utah, just outside of Zion National Park. The event attracted about 100 attendees. There were multiple sessions on safety-related topics, including by the chapter Safety Ambassador. One of my favorite sessions was about the chapter’s August 2019 Hauler Safety Outreach (HSO) event at the Wasatch Integrated Solid Waste Management District landfill. The speakers described how they planned and organized the event, and identified some of the benefits they’ve seen after hosting it. Importantly, they commented SWANA staff provides a lot of assistance and templates for hosting a successful event and encouraged others to consider hosting similar events.
During the networking breaks, several other participants at the conference told me they were interested in hosting HSO events at their disposal facilities! One of these facilities is an anerobic digester, and I believe it would be the first such event at such a location. In other chapters, we have seen multiple HSO events take place, with host facilities learning from each other and collaborating to hold successful events (I’m looking at you, Arizona). I will be following up with these members and encouraging them to schedule HSO events later this year.What about your chapter and your facility? What about you and your co-workers and customers? Will you plan and host a HSO event this year? If you’ve taken the Safety Pledge – thank you. If not – please do so today; and remind your co-workers and others to do so as well. Chapter leaders – encourage members to take the Pledge (I’m looking at you, California and New England). Only through a broad and meaningful commitment to doing every task safely – every day – will we be able achieve our goal of improving the safety culture of this great industry and getting waste collection workers off the list of the ten most dangerous jobs in the United States.I also learned that at one facility, nearly 40 employees have taken the SWANA Safety Pledge, but did not do so on-line. As a result, they are not recorded with our more than 3,000 others who have taken the Pledge via SWANA’s website. The manager of that facility plans on having his employees take the Pledge this week, which could put Utah in our “top 5 chapters for the Pledge.” Other chapters and states with many, many more members have far fewer people who have taken the Pledge.
Recently, someone suggested that we should have a “10 in 10” goal – and seek to get the industry off that list in ten years. Sorry. That is simply not acceptable. We need to be more aggressive in reducing worker fatalities. We have already seen a reduction in fatalities from 2018 to 2019, and that trend has continued into 2020. Although it’s way too soon to declare any sort of victory, it’s encouraging. We reached 11,000 members before 2020. We can certainly get off the top 10 before 2030.
Thank you to Nathan, Juli, and the entire Utah chapter for welcoming me last week, and reminding me that our big focus on safety at the national level is having an impact at the chapter level.1
