Health and safety in the solid waste industry

Solid waste disposal is one of the most hazardous occupations in the United States. Almost no good epidemiological information is available on the subject. There are obvious preventive measures which can and should be undertaken immediately. These include the following: safety education courses should be offered, starting with top management personnel, and extending down to every supervisory level and to field personnel; equipment must be evaluated from a human factors engineering standpoint, so that the equipment is made to fit the worker's capacities; the work environment must be further evaluated and tested on a continuous basis in terms of hazardous conditions; manpower needs and schedules should be reevaluated and altered in an effort to avoid excessive overtime; the basic work procedures of solid waste disposal must be changed to hasten mechanization and containerization. Solid wastes must be tested in order to evaluate community and work exposures to organisms and chemicals in terms of biological effect. Finally, the finding of a significantly higher incidence of coronary disease in uniformed sanitationmen is surprising. An epidemiological study is necessary in an attempt to identify causative factors. The possibility of involvement of acute and/or chronic carbon monoxide exposure in the etiology of coronary diseases must be investigated.