Tag: trash removal

Trash Rooms and Compactors are Dangerous!

Protect the Safety of Your Employees with the Dumpster Caddy
Protect the Safety of Your Employees with the Dumpster Caddy

Trash collection and disposal seems like it should be a fairly benign activity, but sadly trash rooms and compactors have been the sites of a number of serious injuries and fatalities over the years.

Compactor Accidents Can Have Tragic Results

One of the more devastating accidents occurred at Grocery Outlet in Redwood, CA. Mendie Udo, a 43-year-old janitor who had worked at the store for several years, was discovered inside the trash compactor by another employee. Responding firefighters declared him dead at the scene.

Although there were no witnesses, a spokesperson for Cal/OSHA said there was no doubt that Udo was crushed in the compactor and there were no signs of foul play. Based on the position of the body, authorities speculate that Udo leaned into the machine.

Enforce Compactor Safety Rules in Your Workplace

Any employee who uses a compactor should be thoroughly trained in its proper operation. Here are some other safety measures that should be implemented in your workplace:

• The operating key should never be left in an unattended machine.

• Always examine the inside of the compactor’s bin before starting.

• Employees should never climb into the compactor or put any body parts inside the bin.

• Turn off the power and use long-handled tools to clear jams.

• Point of operation guards should be firmly in place at all times.

Prevent Workplace Injuries with a WasteCaddy from DJ Products

Transporting dumpsters and waste bins to the trash room can also cause injuries. Visit our website to learn how our battery-powered WasteCaddy can improve efficiency and cut down on workplace injuries and costly medical claims.

How to Take the Risk Out of the Trash Room

How to Take the Risk Out of the Trash Room
How to Take the Risk Out of the Trash Room

Handling trash is no excuse for neglecting the cleanliness of your dumpster room. In addition to being an eyesore that affects your professional reputation, a messy trash room is a safety hazard for members of your staff.

Tom Van Sickle, general manager of DJ Products, explains the negative impact of a sloppy trash room and offers tips for maintaining a tidy and safe dumpster area.

Drawbacks of a Messy Trash Room

• Overall productivity suffers when you have to hire temporary or permanent replacements for injured staff members.

• Many cities impose fines if trash is not well-contained.

• If you’re a property manager, you’ll find that poor waste management affects tenant morale, resulting in complaints, high resident turnover and bad online reviews.

The Key to Effective Trash Removal

A sloppy trash room usually results from a lack of proper equipment. Dumpsters are heavy and bulky, making them difficult to move with two people. Therefore, staff members resist putting forth the effort when they’re at risk of incurring a serious injury.

Our WasteCaddy electric dumpster mover allows a single employee to maneuver trash bins weighing up to 5,000 pounds, even on inclines, or snow and ice. One of our satisfied clients refers to the WasteCaddy as “an extra employee.”

WasteCaddy: Eco-Friendly Solution to Trash Management Problems

Put your staff to work on more important tasks. We have the right dumpster mover to fulfill the needs of any operation, big or small. Call 800.686.2651 or use our convenient online chat feature to consult with one of our friendly sales engineers.

The Condo Owners Guide to Dumpster Safety

A Guide for Dumpster Safety
A Guide for Dumpster Safety

Shards of glass, broken furniture, heavy and awkward items — taking out the trash represents an enormous liability for multi-tenant properties. As a condo owner, you and the condo staff face the risk of injury both from accidents and the physical strain of handling waste and moving heavy dumpsters around the property.

Condo owners should set aside time to go over safety practices with employees. The Work Safe Center offers this help checklist for dumpster safety that you can review with your workers.

Avoiding Accidents and Hazardous Materials

Employees should recognize that dumpsters may contain dangerous items such as bent metal, broken glass or even medical waste.

Tips for safe waste collection include:

  • Avoid back and shoulder strain; do not throw objects or handle heavy items with only one hand.
  • Use safety gloves when filling or emptying dumpsters.
  • Break down dangerous items into manageable parts.
  • Place warning signs about hazardous waste that should not go in dumpsters.

Dumpster Moving Tools for Safe & Easy Waste Handling

Tools are available to help with the weight and strain of filling dumpsters and carting them around the property. Motorized dumpster movers help prevent injury when moving dumpsters up and down inclines, across rough asphalt, or through inclement weather.

Even in normal use on flat ground, a dumpster mover helps by reducing the strain on the back, legs, and shoulders.

In addition to dumpster moving tools, containers can be made safe and ergonomic with easy-grip handles and tools to help lift lids and deposit heavy items.

Property managers can find out more about dumpster movers and waste bin pullers at DJProducts.com.

 

Taking the Pain Out of Trash Removal with a Power Mover

No one likes to take out the trash. At home, it’s the bottom feeder on the chore list. At work, it’s the back breaker no one wants to tackle. But taking out the trash is one of life’s necessary evils. However, the backache and muscle pains that make workers grumble when given trash duty can be avoided. An ergonomically-designed power mover and dumpster movers eliminate the potential risk of musculoskeletal injury from trash removal operations.A nationally recognized leader in the manufacture of ergonomic material handling equipment, DJ Products makes two products specifically designed to eliminate the pain and strain of pushing heavy trash and recycling containers and dumpsters. Compact and easy to maneuver, this power mover can be used to move trash receptacles through buildings, across plant floors, through parking areas or to street level for curbside pick up.

  •  WasteCaddy Dumpster Mover makes it easy to reposition heavy dumpsters and recycling containers from inside plant areas to outdoor removal sites, move dumpsters from underground parking lots to trash compactor and bailing sites, or transport dumpsters to street level for curbside pick up. The versatile dumpster mover makes it possible for a single employee to move heavy receptacles that require the manual muscle of three employees. DJ Products’ power mover can maneuver dumpsters from 500 to 10,000 pounds. 
  • WasteCaddyLite waste container puller is designed to pull heavy waste containers down hallways or narrow aisles to consolidation points. Extremely maneuverable in tight spaces, DJ Products’ power mover can move containers up to 10,000 pounds. Use to move waste containers at apartment or condominium sites or through hospitals to refuse removal points.

Utilizing DJ Products’ ergonomically-designed power mover may not increase volunteers for trash duty, but they’ll certainly eliminate complaints about sore backs and achy muscles. Now, if we could only do something about the smell. Ask about our free demo trial program.

Making Maintenance Easier in Hotels and Apartment Complexes

Working as a porter or on the maintenance crew in a hotel or apartment complex can be an excellent job with good pay that never gets boring.  Depending upon the environment that you work in, your duties may include everything from snow removal in the Winter and landscaping in the Summer to plumbing, electrical and general contracting.  In this line of work there is never a dull moment, but there can be some very stressful and laborious moments if you don’t have the proper equipment on hand to deal with one particularly messy job – trash removal.

Manual trash container removal, especially in complexes that have a large number of apartments, can be a very difficult process.  When a wheeled dumpster gets loaded to the brim or contains some bulky items from tenants who are moving out or redecorating can get exceedingly heavy and potentially dangerous to move manually – this can put porters and maintenance crew members at great risk for injury.

In order to make maintenance crew members safer while performing this less than favorable part of their job as well as more efficient, it helps to have a motorized dumpster mover or waste container puller.   The trash container movers from DJ Products allow one employee to quickly safely and effectively pull the trash container from even tight quarters and get it stationed where it needs to be for pick up.

Even a completely empty dumpster is heavy enough to pose a risk if employees are attempting to manually move it on their own.  With a dumpster mover or trash container puller from DJ Products you can ensure the safety of your maintenance crew and make this task go from the least desirable on the list to one that everyone will volunteer to perform.

Eliminating the Overexertion of Trash Removal

Full dumpsters and trash containers need to be stationed at the right place and at the right time in order to be picked up.  This is critical for apartments, condos and retail establishments that accumulate trash quickly because missing a pick up could potentially create a build up of waste and unsanitary conditions.  For this reason, employees are often asked to do whatever it takes to get the waste container to its destination, which could potentially compromise safety and put employees and property at risk.

The process of getting the heavy waste container, which may weigh in at a few thousand pounds or more, to its destination could involve employees having to push or pull the dumpster over several hundred feet over rough or hilly terrain.  This can be a very dangerous undertaking for one, two or even three employees regardless of the weather, but the high temperatures of the Summer or the ice and snow of the Winter can greatly increase the chance of overexertion and injury.

The battery powered WasteCaddy from DJ Products lets a single employee safely maneuver a fully loaded trash container over any distance and any type of terrain with no worries at all.  The very reliable and ergonomically designed waste container mover makes this job that usually requires multiple employees an easy task for just one employee.

Using properly designed equipment to maneuver heavy dumpsters and recycling bins drastically reduces the chances of injuries, while at the same time increasing productivity by allowing the job to be completed by one employee instead of two or three.  The job gets done faster, easier and with less of a chance of injury or property damage and this is an optimal situation for both management and the employees.