Waste Management’s Most Important Charge: The Safety of our Team

Waste Management employees work hard: They serve customers with excellence. They keep communities clean and vibrant. They’re on the road daily, piloting big trucks and operating complex equipment. 

You might be able to tell I’m more than a little proud of my colleagues. But my respect for the outstanding job they do goes well beyond the pride that I feel. What I think about constantly, what I wake up thinking about, and yes, what sometimes keeps me up at night – is the safety and well-being of our team. Because at the end of the day, nothing matters more than ensuring that our friends and colleagues return safely home to their loved ones.

Safety is Waste Management’s highest priority. It’s front and center in our values: ‘We take care of ourselves, our co-workers and our neighbors. We follow the rules and practices, and we don’t do it unless it can be done safely.’ Accordingly, we commit significant time, effort, resources and resolve to keeping our team safe.

Safety 24/7

When I say we wake up thinking about safety, I mean it. Every day, our frontline crews reaffirm their commitment to our ‘Mission to Zero’ in what we call the morning crew out. Before we roll out our trucks, our teams pause to talk about safety in the context of the day ahead. What routes are we running? What kinds of traffic can we expect? What actions do we need to take to ensure safe operations? Here’s what that huddle typically looks like.

Safety culture is more than just a morning meeting, though. It’s a 24/7 priority that begins on day one of employment and continues month-after-month for as long as you are with our company. Once hired, a new driver will receive up to four weeks of hands-on training on safety techniques, processes and Life Critical Rules designed to keep them, their teammates and the public safe.

From there, training is an ongoing and constant part of our daily work schedules. Even our veteran employees are continually learning and evolving their understanding of safety practices through coaching and reinforcement from their managers, as well as monthly training videos on timely topics, like protecting bicyclists and avoiding heat exhaustion. We’re always learning, and we always want to get better.

Today, we’re in the midst of our ‘100 Days of Summer Safety’ program, and employees are stepping up with simple - yet life-saving - actions. In Los Angeles, our drivers pledged to place their cell phones inside a bag to avoid distractions while driving, or while working in areas where cell phones are not allowed. To promote the need to hydrate, employees in El Cajon, Ca., handed out water and Gatorade to drivers returning to the yard. Other teams conducted ‘safe backing’ training days and gathered at STOP signs to engage the community around the importance of making complete stops every time. Teams even partnered with local law enforcement agencies to address distracted driving hazards.

And that’s just one state. We’re active in all the others we have operations, and even encourage communities to support our safety efforts, such as through Slow Down to Get Around legislation.

Extending our Safety Culture into our Communities 

At Waste Management, we believe safety is a shared commitment – not just within our company but within the communities we serve. That’s why we are active supporters of Slow Down to Get Around, a safety campaign that requires motorists to drive in a manner similar to the cautions they exercise when traveling through construction zones or passing a stopped public safety vehicle. Even if you don’t live in one of the 21 states that has passed this life-saving legislation, please help us by slowing down to get around.

How We Start and End Each Day

We’re in the environmental solutions business – and we’re darned good at it.

But job number one at Waste Management is safety. We are dedicated to working in a manner that protects our teammates, our communities and neighbors and our environment. We begin our days – and we spend our days – focused on safe and responsible operations. Because our goal is making sure everyone goes home safe and well at the end of every day.