Low-Cost Technical Solutions to Reduce Occupational Hazards of Waste Workers in Developing Countries

Introduction
Waste management procedures in developing countries are characterised by a dominance of manual handling operations. Therefore, improving the occupational safety and health of waste workers is one goal of the research project “IGNIS - Income Generation and Climate Protection through the Sustainable Valorisation of Municipal Solid Wastes in Emerging Megacities – exemplarily for the City of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia”, is funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

Methods
A scientific occupational risk analysis was performed for waste management pilot projects in the field of collection and recycling of organic and inorganic wastes. Low-tech, low-cost safety measures were developed to be implemented by use of locally procurable means. The waste workers were involved in the process to achieve acceptance and ownership of the solutions.

Results
All waste workers surveyed are particularly exposed to hazardous substances and high physical workload. Efficient dust reduction is the most pressing measure at an informal charcoal briquette production place. We developed a simple filling appliance and a new design of the outlet of a grinder and can show that dust emissions are significantly reduced. In addition, adapted working procedures decrease physical burdens. Easy to use lifting devices to weigh waste as well as simple covers to enclose dust during waste sorting procedures were invented for and applied in our scientific waste sorting analysis.

Discussion
Comparable to the situation in other developing countries, occupational risks are currently not addressed at all or by provision of personal protective equipment, which is often inappropriate in terms of material and frequency of distribution. Investing into well designed, low-cost technical solutions will result in higher cost-benefit efficiency not only with regard to risk alleviation but also to improvement of the productivity by reducing work steps and increasing the degree of capacity utilisation.