Recycling & Waste Facilities
Recycling and waste plants sort, bale and move mixed materials with heavy machinery and many people working close to moving equipment. Fatalities and amputations are common in this industry from caught-in machinery, struck-by vehicles and fires from lithium batteries and other hazardous items hidden in the stream.
- Sorters & Line Workers
- Equipment Operators
- Maintenance Techs
- Drivers
- Supervisors
Main hazards
- Conveyors and sorting lines: workers pull items from fast belts next to nip points, drives and screens. Entanglement and amputations. See Conveyors and Machine Guarding.
- Balers, compactors and shredders: crushing and caught-in injuries during jams and cleaning. See Compactors & Balers.
- Lockout failures during jam clearing, repair and cleaning. See Group Lockout and Clearing Jams.
- Mobile equipment: loaders, skid steers, forklifts, trucks and pedestrian conflicts in busy tipping floors and yards. See Backing & Spotters.
- Fires: lithium-ion and other batteries crushed in trucks and compactors, propane tanks, aerosol cans, fuels and combustible dust. See E-Bike Battery Fires and Combustible Dust.
- Sharps, glass and hazardous waste: needles, broken glass, chemicals, asbestos and unknown containers. See Sharps on Jobsites.
- Dust, mold, noise and odors. See Noise and Biological Hazards.
- Slips, trips and falls on wet, cluttered floors, and ergonomic strain from repetitive sorting.
Safe practices
- Keep guards in place on conveyors, drives and rollers. Never reach into moving equipment. Use tools to remove tangled items from a locked-out machine only.
- Lock out and tag out before clearing jams, cleaning, or maintenance. Use group lockout and verify. Provide safe access (platforms and rails) to jam points.
- Use emergency stops within reach along sorting lines and test them. See Emergency Stops.
- Separate pedestrians and vehicles with marked walkways and barriers. Use spotters, backup alarms and high-visibility clothing. See High-Visibility Clothing.
- Prevent and fight fires: remove batteries and hazardous items from the stream, keep dust down, install detection and suppression, have a fire plan and extinguishers, and monitor hot spots in piles. Never operate compactors loaded with suspect batteries.
- Wear cut-resistant gloves, safety glasses, steel-toe boots, hearing protection, a hard hat and dust masks or respirators as needed. See Cut-Resistant Sleeves.
- Train workers to recognize hazardous items and what to do with needles and unknown chemicals.
- Maintain good housekeeping and rotate sorters to cut repetitive strain.
Recycling facility checklist
- Guards and emergency stops on all conveyors and balers work
- We lock out and verify before clearing any jam
- Pedestrians and vehicles are separated with marked routes
- Batteries and hazardous items are removed; fire detection and extinguishers are ready
- Workers wear cut-resistant gloves, eye, hearing and foot protection
Standards & references
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