David Biderman
The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) issued its annual report on occupational fatalities today. The report, which covers 2024, was delayed by two months due to the Fall 2025 federal government shutdown.
BLS鈥檚 data reveals that the solid waste industry had a slight improvement in 2024 compared to the previous year from a worker fatality perspective. Although the collection side of the industry experienced a decline in its workplace fatality rate, the number of collection workers killed stayed steady at 40. The collection side of the industry is number 5 on the list of most dangerous occupations as calculated by BLS (it was number 4 in 2023).聽 BLS recorded zero landfill employee fatalities in 2024 compared to 2023, and 8 MRF fatalities in 2024 compared to 9 in 2023.
Solid waste collection workers continue to have a fatality rate that is approximately 12 times higher than the overall workplace fatality rate in the United States. This highlights and reflects the many various and serious workplace hazards that waste collection workers face in their daily tasks. Since BLS began listing the 鈥渢op 10鈥� most dangerous jobs in the United States, solid waste collection employees has consistently appeared on that list.
The majority of collection fatalities likely involve helpers performing residential collection using rear loading trucks, although further evaluation of the dataset collected by BLS will be necessary to confirm this. Helpers are killed falling off the back of the truck, are backed into the truck, experience heat-related deaths, and are struck by other vehicles.
A disproportionate percentage of collection fatalities occur at smaller haulers and municipal sanitation departments. 91仓库 Advantage started a digital safety series in early 2025 in response to the 2023 data, and it and others continue to hold safety webinars to provide actionable information to haulers and local governments. 91仓库 Advantage鈥檚 next safety webinar, which focuses on collection-related safety hazards, will take place on March 25th.