The highest priority

The combustion of waste sounds like a dangerous process when you consider the potential hazards that go along with dumping tons of trash into garbage pits 30 feet deep or loading trash by large crane into boilers, not to mention heating up the trash to hundreds of degrees to generate energy. But one company that operates dozens of these waste-to-energy (WTE) facilities worldwide has health and safety records that continue to out-perform the industry average. Morristown, New Jersey-based Covanta, which operates 46 WTE facilities and has 3,500 employees, has a corporate safety philosophy across all of its operations that place health and safety importance above all else.

“At Covanta, the health and safety of our employees, those who visit our facilities and the people who live in the communities we serve is our highest priority,” says Beth Hurley, Covanta’s vice president of safety and health. “Accidents and injuries affect our people and their families, are costly to those involved and are disruptive to our business. Accidents and injuries can and should be prevented.”

Hurley has more than 33 years of experience as a safety professional and certified industrial hygienist. In her current role she is responsible for leading the integration of facilities safety and health programs at Covanta’s numerous locations and as a business function at the corporate level, including implementation of the company medical surveillance and injury management programs, industrial hygiene sampling and employee training programs. Beth also oversees regulatory compliance and Covanta’s participation in the Occupational Safety and Health Voluntary Participation Program (OSHA VPP). She shares further how Covanta has been able to achieve such high marks in health and safety performance.
 

Renewable Energy from Waste (REW): Can you describe Covanta’s uniform approach to health and safety across its facilities?

Beth Hurley (BH): The Covanta Safety and Health Management system is highly scalable and transportable so it can be implemented very successfully at all of Covanta’s facilities. We utilize Covanta-designed and owned web-based industrial hygiene, accident statistics and lockout/tagout databases at all facilities. The Covanta safety procedure system is accessible 24/7 to all employees via Covanta’s intranet site and houses all training and videos, tailgates, safety statistics and root cause analyses as well as many other informational documents and tools.

In order to reduce and eventually eliminate accidents and injuries, Covanta uniformly stresses that everyone needs to understand what causes accidents in the first place.

Since all organizations experience an ebb and flow to their safety performance, periodically it is important to add a new push to the safety management systems. Over the past five years, in addition to safety leadership training, Covanta rolled out other enhanced safety improvement initiatives called STEP-UP (Safety Today and Every day is Paramount—Unleash the Power)and STEP-UP Reinforcement. Through STEP-UP and its reinforcement, Covanta has continued to tweak this safety performance improvement program, especially in response to business growth and the ever-changing forces on our industry. With STEP-UP, Covanta began to accelerate its safety and health journey to world-class safety performance.

The STEP-UP expectation of a “double-zero tolerance safety norm” set the goal for eliminating unsafe behaviors and unsafe conditions.

Concepts of safety leadership were developed and are conveyed through monthly video training, and every employee writes two near-miss reports per month to drive reductions in unsafe behaviors and unsafe conditions. We have found that by engaging employees in the standardized near-miss reporting and evaluating program, more employees step up to share in engineering solutions and controls.

Safety training, in three-, six- and nine-hour segments depending on corporate job function, is required for all corporate employees, including regional and corporate field-based employees and all new employees coming into the company. A safety topic is discussed at the beginning of each formal meeting. Safety work orders are a significant focus in an effort to reduce backlog efficiently and quickly.

Likewise, Covanta stresses the importance of open communication regarding safety findings and concerns across the organization and with its contractors through Tailgates, Safety Stand-downs, pre-job meetings and other means of communication. STEP-UP has played a significant role in strengthening the Covanta safety culture.
 

REW: What kind of safety training do new employees receive and what level of ongoing safety training takes place in your operations?

BH: In addition to regulatory training, part of the STEP-UP initiative fosters a monthly safety awareness campaign that all employees participate in to introduce the basics of safety and to build a foundation for creating a safety-intuitive culture at Covanta. Personal ownership is a primary cornerstone for this important responsibility — ownership that is shared equally with all Covanta employees and drives toward helping our people make the right decisions. Further, these concepts are meant to establish a daily routine and to motivate our employees to think about what they are doing and improve the way they characterize and respond to hazards.

Covanta performs annual safety, health and environmental (SHE) training. Each month, one safety and health main topic and one environmental main topic is completed during the monthly SHE STEP-UP meeting. These main topics cover a range of regulatory topics as well as other subjects required by Covanta on an annual basis (such as environmental awareness training). In addition, there are weekly SHE Tailgate and monthly videos that are produced for Covanta focusing on different SHE topics. The monthly main topics and the weekly tailgates are chronicled in the monthly SHE training calendar.

All newly hired employees receive classroom and on-the-job training covering a range of topics within the first few weeks and months of employment. Some examples include: hazard recognition, CPR/first aid and electrical safety. They are also given a safety orientation on the first day of employment. The orientation covers basic Covanta safety rules and procedures as well as those areas of the facility and typical conditions or situations that are of significant risk to personnel. The orientation allows the individual to begin routine assignments in their particular work area. The depth and detail of the instruction is dictated by the duties and responsibilities of the individual’s position. In addition, all facility management staff complete a 3 1/2-hour accident investigation course within the first six months of assuming their duties.

All new hires work toward completing job training instructions (JTI) for their specific position that includes all aspects of the job—safety, process and environmental components. Various supervisors must sign off on the JTI in order for it to be completed.
 

REW: What is Covanta’s overall safety record and how has this program led to improved safety?

BH: Covanta’s drive to be a world-class energy-from-waste (EfW) company includes a goal to achieve world-class safety and health performance. Covanta is pleased with the progress made but also recognizes there are always additional opportunities for improvement. Covanta’s Total Case Incident Rate (TCIR) and the days away/restricted transferred (DART) rate since 2008 compared with those of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) consistently outperforms in its BLS rate sector. Covanta’s TCIR is better by 42 percent and the Covanta DART is better by 33 percent. (A camparision chart is available at www.REWmag.com/ rew0115-operations-safety.aspx.)

As employees have become more actively engaged in observing unsafe conditions and behaviors, they are mentoring each other more, looking for ways to correct patterns of unsafe behaviors and for ways to eliminate unsafe conditions through improved engineering methods.

Additionally, the workforce has started to take care of each other more. No one wants to get hurt at work and yet, accidents do result because someone has either worked beyond their potential, was unaware of their surroundings or practiced an unsafe behavior. Relying on each other to be alert, question methods and look for improvements is the most sustainable way to reduce injuries over the long haul. Relying on lagging indicators alone cannot help drive these types of improvements. Now, less than 1 percent of employees are involved in injuries but Covanta knows this can be reduced even further with continued efforts.

As a result of this excellent safety performance, 37 Covanta facilities received the 2013 Occupational Excellence Achievement Award from the National Safety Council in 2013. This award recognizes companies/facilities with lost-time injury rates equal to or less than half the rate of other companies with the same NAICS classification (North American Industry Classification System).
 

REW: How do you work within the communities you operate in for safety preparedness?

BH: There are many examples of programs Covanta is in involved in to further safety preparedness. For example, since many public and private waste haulers frequent our facilities daily, Covanta and the member companies of the Integrated Waste Services Association [now the Energy Recovery Council (ERC)] in cooperation with the Occupational Health & Safety Administration (OSHA) established a national safety campaign for waste haulers approximately 10 years ago. Using the structure and materials from this effort, Covanta continues to outreach to waste haulers in an effort to highlight why the men and women who haul municipal solid waste (MSW) need to adhere to the rules of safety — not only for themselves, but also for their family, friends and loved ones. The safety campaign, “Safety, Do It for Life,” focuses on the ethics of safety at WTE facilities and the importance of waste haulers and safe work habits. Every Covanta facility provides safety rule cards and interacts with haulers at some point during each year, typically in June, to renew the interest in “Safety, Do It for Life”

Covanta facilities participate with various emergency response personnel around the country, performing annual drills and reviewing emergency action procedures as needed to remain current and prepared.

For example, the Covanta SEMASS EfW facility annually provides the Carver, Massachusetts, fire department an opportunity to tour the facility and practice rescue skills in the various locations inside the facility. Likewise, the Covanta SEMASS Emergency Response Team (ERT) Squad held its recruit training class at the Carver Fire Department Training Facility. Over the years SEMASS and the Carver Fire Department have enjoyed a great relationship with extraordinary cooperation.
 

REW: How will Covanta continue to work on improving safety within your operations?

BH: Safety and health at Covanta is our first priority and a cornerstone of our culture. Improving safety culture is about establishing ownership where every employee feels and takes action for their own safety and the safety of their peers and contractors.

Without a doubt, tuning up your safety management system while measuring a wide range of leading indicators will help drive improvements in safety performance. Engage employees in the process, move away from a failure-avoidance-based system and gear up for a success- seeking, behavior-based program. Enthusiasm and commitment will grow as employees see modifications and enhancements made as a result of feedback and recommendations they’ve provided. Say goodbye to lagging indicators as a way to improve your safety performance, and hello to leading indicators.

Covanta’s successful safety performance is the result of the commitment of all employees and the Covanta senior management team to continuous improvement.

Beth Hurley is vice president of health and safety for Morristown, New Jersey-based Covanta responsible for leading the integration of facilities safety and health programs at Covanta.