Dumpster Movers Archives

What Things Should Never Go Into Your Dumpster?

Wondering whether that plastic bottle of cleaning spray can go into the dumpster? At your work place, employees and visitors are wondering similar questions all the time. Find out what items can’t be thrown away and post a list near dumpsters to prevent messy and dangerous situations!

Toxic Chemicals

Items that contain hazardous chemicals include batteries, electronics, and light bulbs. Many household cleaners and hygiene products also contain chemicals that should not be put into landfills.

Flammable Materials

Dumpster fires might start with a match or cigarette butt, but the fuel typically comes from flammable waste thrown into the dumpster. These include oil, lubricants, paint, and fuels including gasoline, butane, and propane.

In restaurants and commercial kitchens, tell staff to never discard oil-soaked rags or aprons. These should be soaked in water first or taken to a hazardous waste drop-off.

Items That Are Illegal to Throw Away

Many of the above items are prohibited by local laws and the rules of your waste removal service. Other illegal or banned items may include sharps, thermometers, smoke detectors, tires, and treated lumber.

Some cities have begun outlawing food waste in the trash, making compost bins mandatory. Stay ahead of the game so your business is prepared for any new environmental rules on the horizon!

Use a Dumpster Mover for Convenience

Dumpsters come with many rules, regulations, and safety concerns. Make things simple with a dumpster mover that just one employee can use.

Our WasteCaddy dumpster mover can tow 5,000 pounds, while the WasteCaddyLite can push a standard commercial dumpster weighing up to 2,000 pounds. Contact us if you’d like a free demo!

Got to Move a Heavy Dumpster – Use Our Safe Lifting and Pushing Tips

If you need your employees to move a dumpster, there’s always a risk of injury. Without a dumpster pusher, it’s important to understand how to safely maneuver the dumpster without causing any physical strains or injuries.

To help, we would like to share some safe lifting tips with you. Here are some guidelines in the event that you aren’t sure how to keep yourself or your employees protected during heavy moves.

DJ Products Offers These Safe Lifting Tips

Preventing injury is often easy once you know the proper techniques. If you don’t have a dumpster pusher in house, you should focus on these safe lifting tips:

Take a moment to think about the move before you start.
Try to keep the weight as close to your waist as possible.
Find a stable position to stand before attempting the lift.
Make sure you have a tight hold on the load.
Lift with your legs. Avoid lifting with your back.
Don’t twist your body when you lift.
Look ahead and keep moving smoothly.
Don’t lift more than you can handle.
Put the load down and then make any necessary adjustments.

The Benefits of a Dumpster Pusher

A dumpster pusher offers your business so many great benefits. It can significantly cut down on the manpower it takes to move a dumpster. Also, you may find that the number of injuries your business reports each year will show a marked decrease. For some employers, after reviewing their workers comp claims, they discovered that a high number of injuries were due to moving dumpsters.

We’d love to know how we can help you. Contact us!

Is It Best to Push or Pull a Heavy Dumpster?

DJ Products’ Dumpster Caddy Reduces Workplace Injuries

Deciding whether to push or pull a loaded dumpster can have a significant impact on your health, and the health of your employees. Moving several hundred pounds of trash and metal unassisted is never easy and can be close to impossible if the surface isn’t completely flat and smooth.

Pushing or Pulling – Which is Better?

In most cases, pushing a dumpster will result in less strain on your back and is generally safer since it cannot end up rolling over you if you fall down. Even so, a fully loaded dumpster can weigh half a ton or more, making it extremely difficult to move even with two people on the job.

How to Alleviate the Problem

Dumpster tugs are designed to work around the problem of forcibly moving a dumpster by giving you a way to use a powered device to help move it along. Our tugs are designed to be operated by only one person, making it less likely that you will need multiple employees to handle trash collecting activities. In a hotel or apartment complex environment, this frees up maintenance workers to focus on more pressing matters surrounding the comfort of your guests and residents.

DJ Products has developed dumpster tugs that make moving trash around extremely simple. To find out more about how our products can benefit your business, give us a call at 1-800-686-2651

Beyond the Dumpster: Plastics Piling Up in Wake of China’s Global Recycling Changes

Plastics Are Piling Up in Landfills

Businesses everywhere utilize dumpsters on a daily basis. The prompt removal of trash and other potential safety hazards is imperative for sustaining an inviting and exceptional professional setting. China has recently decided to disallow other countries, including the US, to send recyclables to China.

The addition of these new recycling changes could mean even more dumpster foot traffic will occur on site. With a notable uptick in dumpster usage in many companies’ foreseeable futures, durable quality dumpster movers will soon be a necessary addition to avoid excessive labor and safety concerns.

Taking out the Trash

China’s ban is affecting small and large businesses alike. You can’t always predict whether a change will be beneficial or costly to your business. But, a dumpster mover product that will always be a win-win solution for you doesn’t need to depend on ‘what-ifs’ to help you operate successfully. You can keep safety violations and injuries on-the-job to a bare minimum when you invest in products that protect your employees and your best interests.

If your business strives to recycle as much of your materials as possible, DJ products can minimize the effects this newest ban could have on your bottom line. Quality dumpster movers that can carry the weight of up to 5,000 pounds are heavy-duty helpers when you need to ease the burden from your hard-working employees’ shoulders. Battery operated machines help you forge ahead and better your chances at improving the work environment.

Going with the Flow

Do you need consistency in an industry that is fraught with unknowns? Let our DJ Products be your staying power. We understand that when changes happen a reliable source is needed to combat the uncertainty. Our products can be your calm in this newest storm.

Beyond the Dumpster: The Recycling Challenge

The average American generates more than four pounds of trash per day. At that rate, it’s not surprising that employees need a powered dumpster mover to transport loads of waste products.

Despite the increase in eco-awareness, the U.S. still faces a serious trash problem that extends far beyond the dumpster on your property. What are the challenges to reducing the amount of landfill waste, and how can you contribute to the solution?

How Did We Get Here?

Short-sighted policies of decades past led to today’s problems. Land was seen as an almost unlimited resource, and in the “land of plenty” people became accustomed to easy disposability.

The negative environmental impact of landfills extends far and wide due to greenhouse gas pollution. Organic materials, largely from food waste, emit methane, which is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide. At this point, little is being done to capture methane emissions or eliminate them altogether.

Finding a Solution

Perhaps the U.S. can take its cues on waste reduction from other developed countries that have been more successful. For example, Germany has a recycling rate of 62 percent, nearly double the rate in the U.S., which is attributed to standardized laws throughout the country.

Here are some policies you can incorporate in your workplace:

– Make sure that all trash cans have an adjacent recycling bin.

– Include compost bins so food can be disposed of properly.

– Get tips and suggestions from your waste management company.

Lighten the Load with a Powered Dumpster Mover from DJ Products

Did you know that trashrooms are the most dangerous areas in a workplace? Contact us to learn how battery-powered movers such as our WasteCaddyLite can improve safety and efficiency at your property.

Beyond the Dumpster: The Growing Trash Problem

Beyond proper dumpster moving equipment for your facility, have you ever given any thought to the impact trash has on our society as a whole? Despite the increase in recycling efforts, waste disposal is still a serious issue generating problems for the environment.

Where Does All the Trash Go?

According to data from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), approximately 251 million tons of trash are generated annually in the U.S. That works out to just under five pounds per person per day, which equates to four-fifths of a ton per person per year.

Currently, only one-third of trash is recycled, with another 12.5 percent going into incinerators. That leaves 55 percent to be deposited in landfills.

How Landfills Work

As one expert put it, dumping trash in landfills is more of a mummification process than a composting process. Once the landfill is sealed, the trash inside is cut off from air and water that would trigger natural decomposition.

Despite precautions, liquids from trash in landfills can seep into groundwater. Landfills are also responsible for one-fourth of all methane released into the air as well as 2.3 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.

Environmental laws have made landfills more expensive to create and operate, so there was a movement from many small landfills to a reduced number of mega-dumps. As a result, trash has to travel farther, which causes more pollution from transportation.

Eco-Friendly Dumpster Moving Equipment from DJ Products

Trash rooms are a prime risk area for costly musculoskeletal injuries. Battery-powered dumpster moving equipment such as our popular WasteCaddyLite reduces the strain and overexertion that often results from transporting dumpsters.

Call 800.686.2651 and let our friendly sales engineers help you find the right solution for your property.

The Trouble with Trash!

On Top of Being a Hygiene Issue, Overflowing Trash Can Cause Environmental Repercussions.

If your trash bill was charged by the pound, would you throw away less? Many experts in the field of waste management and waste reduction believe that Americans aren’t very concerned about trash because we typically pay flat fees for trash collection. That, and the fact that few of us encounter landfills in our day-to-day lives. Out of sight, out of mind.

We’ve all heard about the dangers of pollution and hazardous waste going to landfills. Yet it feels like a distant problem.

Proper waste management plays a role in avoiding some of the biggest trash problems facing people and the planet:

• In some cases, landfills leach toxic chemicals into the soil, which ends up polluting our water supply.

• Clogged garbage drains cause disastrous floods.

• Toxic fumes from trash can even pollute the air.

• Countries without modern waste control have higher rates of diseases and illnesses, such as from drinking polluted water or breathing in smoke from burning trash.

• Many developed countries ship toxic waste to foreign countries where it gets disposed of improperly.

• The U.S. spends $200 billion a year related to trash.

Life necessitates trash, but the U.S. waste output far exceeds other developed countries. We all might consider ways to reduce and reuse, and be aware of where our garbage winds up.

At DJ Products, we make the WasteCaddy dumpster mover to make it easier for businesses to handle waste effectively.

Do your employees have to manually push dumpsters around the property or out to a curb for pickup? If so, a dumpster mover makes the process easier, safer, and more efficient. Contact DJ Products for a free demo!

Dumpster Moving = Danger & Injury. The Case for Safety.

Support Your Staff with a Safe Workplace

The average cost of a trash room injury is more than $41,000 to the employer. To the injured worker, the trouble goes beyond pain and medical care. Great employees don’t stick around forever when working conditions are unpleasant and dangerous.

Making it worse, dumpster injuries are the most common type of injury for many janitorial and property management jobs. At apartment complexes and similar locations, the worst job of all is trash room duty without a dumpster mover.

All in all, dumpster-related injuries cost businesses big time in the short-term and long-term, in both concrete and intangible ways.

Why Dumpsters Cause Injury So Often

As risk specialist Brian Plautz of Minnesota Comp Advisor explains, there’s usually no good way to approach a dumpster and then push it or pull it. The worker exerts brute force to start the dumpster rolling. Then, there’s inevitably some kind of hazard—an inclined plane, rough terrain or gravel, or tight turns.

The heavy force of pushing or pulling combines with the high-torque movements of maneuvering a dumpster to create the perfect storm for back, neck, and shoulder injuries.

A Dumpster Mover Can Prevent Workers Comp Fraud

Invisible injuries like sprains and strains carry the highest risk of fraudulent claims. Plautz explains that unlike a broken bone, the worker can describe symptoms however they want and the doctor can never definitively say they’re cured. A motorized dumpster mover like the WasteCaddy from DJ Products essentially eliminates the risk of trash room injury in the first place.

Protect your workers—and protect your business—with the risk-reducing solution of the WasteCaddy from DJ Products. Contact us for more info!

Dumpster Fires Require Rapid Dumpster Removal

Crisis – Dumpster Fires Require Fast Action

Dumpster fires can be extremely dangerous to both people and nearby buildings. Little can be done until firefighters arrive, but you do have the safe option of using a motorized dumpster mover, which can potentially save lives and property.

A Harrowing Dumpster Fire at Goodwill

Like most buildings with dumpsters, the headquarters of Goodwill of South Central Wisconsin kept their waste containers right next to the building. This past June, something went terribly wrong and flames broke out. The building had to be evacuated because the fire could have easily spread inside before long.

Thankfully, a trash collection truck arrived at the scene. The good Samaritan truck driver pushed the container into the parking lot and tipped the box over, so its flame-engulfed contents could be readily extinguished by emergency responders.

No injuries were reported from the fire. Yet imagine the frightening possibilities. The entire building could have been burnt to cinders before long.

Improve Safety with Dumpster Movers

In an ideal world, waste containers would always be clean and property managers would have total control over what kinds of trash can go into the dumpster. But there’s always a risk that someone will put flammable items in your trash. Then all it takes is a flicked cigarette butt or a still-warm match to stoke the fire.

The WasteCaddy dumpster tows from DJ Products can be used to reduce the risk of worker injury on a daily basis, and you can even potentially use them to push containers during an emergency situation. Contact us to learn more about how dumpster movers can help manage risk at your business.

Prevent Dumpster Hazards With Our Tips

Dumpster Safety Tips Include Using a Dumpster Mover.

The expression “dumpster fire” often gets thrown around as a humorous metaphor, but a real dumpster fire is no joke. Lives can be lost and buildings burnt to rubble when a dumpster catches fire and acts like an enormous torch.

Besides fire hazards, dumpsters can also lead to muscle injuries for workers, slip-and-fall accidents, and general health hazards from fumes or chemicals.

Here are 5 tips to eliminate most sources of dumpster hazards:

Post signs and educate workers about hazardous waste. Learn what substances that are present on site may be combustible, toxic, or corrosive. Let employees and tenants know what items cannot be placed in the dumpster, and post dumpster warning signs.
Never transport dumpsters manually. Dumpsters can easily tip over when being moved, lifted, or tilted. The weight may not be distributed evenly inside the dumpster. Use motorized dumpster tugs to push the container smoothly, especially on rough or inclined ground.
Keep dumpsters locked or inaccessible when possible. Trespassers or unauthorized people may deposit hazardous waste intentionally or otherwise. Dumpster divers may leave broken glass, sharp metal, or other hazards on the ground.
Prohibit smoking near dumpsters. Cigarette butts, lighter fluid, and other combustible substances are often the cause of dumpster fires.
Empty dumpsters regularly. Overfilled dumpsters create spill and tripping hazards. The extra weight also makes it more dangerous to maneuver. Use automated equipment like dumpster tugs and self-emptying systems, and stick to a frequent removal schedule.

Do you have team members who need to tow a dumpster manually? Take care of this big injury concern with battery-powered dumpster tugs that are easy to control!

Tag: Dumpster Movers