Wellness coaches, ice added to rotation for sanitation workers in Dallas

While there's no escaping the heat or taking any shortcuts for those working outdoors, employers like the Dallas Sanitation Department offer more options for employees to stay healthy.

“This year, we added something new. We brought in wellness coaches to teach workplace ergonomics classes for this particular line of work,” Clifton Gillespie, Director of the Dallas Department of Sanitation. “Showing them appropriate stretches and postures for what they're doing.”

Gillespie said approximately 500 city employees make up the department. In addition, the city hires more than 200 temporary laborers. Of those, at least 170 are assigned to ride in the back of the trash trucks.

“Our rear load trucks, those are the trucks with the two helpers that laborers that work on the back. Those crews are most susceptible to the heat because they're out in it all day,” Gillespie said.

Their job, Gillespie said, is one of the toughest due to the demand.

"There's 156 total daily routes between garbage and recycling collections each day," Gillespie said. "There's 100,000 stops every single day. So, we have approximately 258,000 customers that we are collecting garbage and recycle (for). You double that to get about 500,000 stops every week."

During the summer, schedules and routines shift to help them adapt to the high temperatures.

“We try and get them out working, you know, by 7:00 am every day,” Gillespie said. “Generally, crews have two rest breaks a day, and in the summertime, we double that to four minimum breaks. For those crews with the helpers as well… (We) make sure that they're having the opportunity to switch off in the cab of the truck to be able to cool down in the AC as needed.”

The adjustments, Gillespie said, are all part of the “100 Days of Summer Safety” initiative which kicked off in June.  The goal, he said, is to help crews in the field stay hydrated this summer to combat heat stress.

In the department’s lobby, a calendar tallies up the good days and the toughest. There are nearly 60 dots that celebrate days where no employee reported a heat-related incident. As of August 1, two red dots reflect the reality of the dangers the workers are susceptible to.

“At this point, we are still just at two heat-related injuries,” Gillispie said. “Obviously, the goal is zero. My understanding of the two injuries were just minor heat exhaustion.”

Gillespie said no hospitalizations were required. He credits the layers of safety implemented to the success of the initiative.

This marks the second summer that field crews are issued lightweight t-shirts to wear as their alternate summer uniform. Usually, workers are required to wear a button-down shirt. In addition, they were issued high-visibility bucket hats and cooling towels.

“We take additional steps to make sure that they have plenty of ice for ice water during the day and other, hydrating drinks and snacks for the week to keep them going,” Gillispie said.

The long-term goal, Gillispie said is to add more automated trucks to the rotation.

“Our automated trucks with operate with just one driver operator and have the automated arm to collect. Those employees are in the air-conditioned truck all day,” Gillispie said. “It's a much safer way of doing the business, and we'd like to be able to see more of that in the future.”