Waste management workers face high injury, fatality rates

The truck lurched forward and stopped abruptly every few seconds, then rocked side to side as a mechanical arm slung bottles, cans and stacks of cardboard into a receptacle in the back.

Dennis Coppinger sat in the driver’s seat, tapping the gas pedal and the brakes and wiggling a joystick that controls the mechanical arm. A massive diesel engine whined and heated the cockpit as the sun rose over a quiet Spokane neighborhood.

“Cul-de-sacs are the worst,” Coppinger said while executing a five-point turn, dodging a tree branch, a parked car and the post of a basketball hoop. His Thursday route was especially long, with nearly 1,000 recycling bins to collect and many cul-de-sacs to navigate.

Coppinger is one of about 100 waste and recycling collectors in Spokane’s Solid Waste Management department. In an average day, they collect up to 495 tons of garbage, 75 tons of recyclables, and 100 tons of food and yard waste.

Coppinger, who’s been a collector for seven years, said the job “gets old after a while.” But it does come with a high degree of risk: Waste and recycling collectors have one of the highest occupational fatality rates in the United States, according to a study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

At least 33 waste and recycling collectors died at work in 2013, putting them in the top 10 most dangerous jobs behind loggers, fishermen, roofers, pilots and flight engineers. Police and firefighters died at much lower rates.

“Our industry is by nature very dangerous,” said Robin Freedman, a spokeswoman for Waste Management Inc., the company that runs the city’s SMaRT Recycling Center.

In Spokane’s waste department, no employee has died at work in at least 17 years, said Marlene Feist, a city spokeswoman. And injury rates have gone down significantly since the late 1990s, when the city began automating its collection trucks, she said.

Before that, collectors had to lift and dump all garbage cans manually. Until 2012, they sorted all recyclables by hand at the curb. In 2013 and 2014, the department documented a total of 40 injuries that required time off.

Coppinger attributes some shoulder pain to hours spent muscling around the steering wheel. Others complain of chronic back pain, he said.

Rick Hughes, a supervisor in the department, said vehicle collisions are among the most common hazards on the job. Collectors often have to get out of their trucks to move bins that are inaccessible or too full. And some, called “swampers,” still ride on the back to collect waste manually.

That puts them out in the open, where other drivers might not see them, Hughes said.

James Tieken, another supervisor, said, “We ask our drivers to do a lot of things you’re not usually asked to do.”

Spokane’s waste and recycling collectors make between $32,600 and $56,200 a year, plus a pension, overtime and various benefits. They fall into three categories based on the trucks they operate and the kinds of material they collect. Surrounding areas like Spokane Valley are serviced by Waste Management, Sunshine Disposal Inc. and Empire Disposal Inc. Cheney has its own department.

Most of Spokane’s discarded material goes to three locations: About 90 percent of garbage goes to an incinerator at the city’s Waste-to-Energy Facility, and recyclables go to the SMaRT center. Food and yard waste goes to Barr-Tech LLC, a compost producer southwest of Spokane along Interstate 90.

Once recyclables have reached the SMaRT center, they’re sorted first by hand and then by a series of machines. Coppinger, who previously sorted recyclables at a plant in Spokane Valley, said he doesn’t miss that job.

“It was a disgusting job,” he said, listing items that frequently came down the conveyor belts. Among them: dirty diapers, hypodermic needles and bottles full of chew spit.

“I had a co-worker who got poked by a needle,” he said.

Freedman, with the SMaRT center, urges people to check the Waste Management website for a list of items that can be recycled. Contamination poses a threat to workers, and items like plastic bags “wreak havoc” on the center’s machinery, she said.

Coppinger’s current job does have some perks. On his Thursday route, one woman regularly waits near her bins to hand him a cold Starbucks beverage – a token of appreciation.

Coppinger said if he ever becomes too tired to work in waste management, he’ll probably transfer to the street or water department. But for now, he’s content.

“I’ll do this for as long as I can,” he said. “I don’t plan on leaving anytime soon.”