Waste and recycling: workers at risk

28 April probably means nothing special to you. It was the date in 1914 when Canada passed an Act to compensate workplace injuries, chosen in 2003 by the International Labour Organisation to celebrate an International Day for health and safety at work. A date that has left a more indelible mark in labour’s memory might have been more fitting. On 10... Find out more

Think about it. How many clear proposals to improve working conditions and tackle insecurity have you heard in the European Parliament election campaign? Wide divergences and heated debates abound in the current European election campaign. For many candidates, work is like sex for the Puritans. They see it everywhere, but will not talk about... Find out more

Short story writer, novelist and playwright Angelo Ferracuti’s latest book deals with the “Ravenna tragedy”, a 1987 industrial accident in which 13 shipyard workers died in this port city in north-eastern Italy. We asked him to talk about his unique approach to creating this memorial work and what the local community thought about his book, twenty... Find out more

Almost 20 million migrants work in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. The majority today are from South Asia and many are exploited and face particularly harsh daily living and working conditions. In some cases, it could even be referred to as forced labour. The phenomenon is not new, but it is now very much in the spotlight with the new building... Find out more

1973: two young British sociologists, Peter Armstrong and Theo Nichols, publish the pamphlet entitled ' Safety or profit? '. It is a short, controversial text that gets right to the heart of the matter. Its brevity and clear language demonstrate an understanding of the reality that goes far beyond the vast majority of similar academic publications... Find out more

There has latterly been a growing trend in France for novels tied somehow or other into working conditions. And there would be no end to the list of fiction works set against general malaise in the corporate world. That this new literary seam is a rich one to mine points to the growing unease surrounding our relationship to work. While these kinds... Find out more

The waste industry is facing many changes due to globalisation and higher demand for waste re-use and recycling. The focus in the industry is shifting from disposal – ‘how to get rid of waste’ – to reuse – ‘how to make the most of waste resources’. The transition from collecting and landfilling to sorting, selecting and recycling is taking place in... Find out more

The UK’s waste treatment and recycling industry is breaking workplace injury records. Its workers have double the injury risk of building workers. The Health and Safety Executive – the UK’s workplace safety inspection authority – is campaigning to change matters. Trade unions want a crackdown on rule-dodging employers. Mark Wright was "a big soft... Find out more

The unforgettable sight of Naples’ streets littered with rubbish bags was an apocalyptic image that shows how vital the clean-up jobs (refuse collectors, street sweepers) are to keep the town running. The challenge of keeping our streets clean is largely under-funded. Recent research in Italy has uncovered serious health problems related to... Find out more

The European Union’s policy on waste aims to make waste management more efficient throughout the Union, treating waste as a resource and moving towards a European recycling society in which the Member States can develop autonomous waste elimination systems. EU waste policy aims to make waste management more efficient for the Union as a whole by... Find out more

Belgium has had household paper and recyclable packaging waste collections for years. The collected refuse was long almost entirely hand-sorted. Sorting centres have recently invested in machinery to automate some operations. Modernisation does not automatically make the job any less gruelling. An overpowering acrid stench fills the nostrils of the... Find out more

We are in the process of transforming production and consumption in the direction of more environmentally adapted products and processes. How good are we at applying a holistic perspective and including a healthy and safe working environment as an integrated aim of the sustainable and green businesses and workplaces? The aim to reduce environmental... Find out more

Olivier Ervyn is a Belgian documentary photographer who has dedicated his latest work to West Africa. The photos of the “Bwala Five Five” tip are part of a larger project focused on people at work and the risks they will take to scrape a meagre living. At the same time, he is preparing one project on African churches in Europe and another on the... Find out more