The Municipal Waste Management Association (MWMA) is a national membership association affiliated with The U.S. Conference of Mayors. The MWMA represents solid waste directors, environmental commissioners, and other municipal solid waste decision makers from major cities across the country. Its mission is to impact policy, share best practices, promote operation efficiencies, and provide information on innovations in the delivery of integrated waste management services.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors, MWMA’s parent organization, is a national association of city governments, each represented by its chief elected official, the Mayor. Through the Conference, the nation’s larger cities, with populations of 30,000 or more, share experiences and cooperate to meet the challenges of urban leadership. The U.S. Conference of Mayors’ programs address the range of issues facing America’s cities.

Under current law, state participation in OSHA is voluntary, however, if a state decides to participate, OSHA requirements must be applied to all local governments within the state. Several states do participate, and many municipal solid waste programs represented within MWMA will be required to comply with the Proposed Ergonomics Standard if it is implemented.

As proposed, OSHA’s Ergonomics Standard (64 Fed. Reg. 65768, 65787-88 (Nov. 23, 1999)) would cover public sector solid waste services. However, OSHA proposed to exempt construction, agriculture and maritime employers from its Proposed Ergonomics Standard. OSHA asserted that workers in exempted industries "face significant risk of harm due to exposure to MSD hazards;" however, workers in these industries "face quite" working conditions that warrant special consideration.

However, similar to these industries, refuse collection workers are exposed to a variety of potential hazards outside their employer’s control, including heat, cold, ice, snow, rain, potholes, parked cars, street traffic, and other various hazards. Moreover, while these exempted industries may perform work at temporary fixed work sites and have substantial supervisory oversight, the typical solid waste worker moves throughout various routes in several neighborhoods with limited supervisory oversight.

MWMA endorses the position of the National Solid Wastes Management Association (NSWMA) on seeking an exemption for the solid waste industry. NSWMA provided comments to OSHA and we endorse the supporting arguments provided by them under Section II – "OSHA’s Bases for Exempting Construction," Section III – "Addressing The Construction Industry Would Substantially Impede the Rule-Making," Section IV – "Lack of Data Regarding Effective Solutions Compels Exemption of Solid Waste Management Industry" (Parts A, B, and C). These arguments state that OSHA’s basis for exempting construction should be the same standard for the solid waste industry because of similar distinguishable working conditions and insufficient evidence regarding ergonomic solutions.

Thus, solid waste service providers face a broad range of unique conditions that compel an exemption from OSHA’s Proposed Ergonomics Standard. If required to comply with OSHA’s Proposed Ergonomics Standard, many municipalities may attempt to transition to fully-automated programs to avoid the aforementioned challenges of non-fixed work sites.

MWMA endorses NSWMA’s arguments that while automation may reduce some lifting activities, its overall track record with regard to ergonomic hazards is uncertain. Fully-automated programs are not an acceptable alternative because municipalities are limited by physical constraints such as urban density, municipal design, and geographic topography. Additionally, some solid waste services, such as curbside recycling collection would be even more difficult to automate, given these challenges. Please refer to NSWMA’s comments under Section IV, Part D for further examples.

While the Municipal Waste Management Association (MWMA) and other stakeholders involved in the public and private sector solid waste industry have taken steps to address ergonomic hazards within their control, specific data on exposures, health effects, and the efficacy of available solutions is extremely limited.

If fully-automated systems were logistically possible and could be proven to avoid the challenges for non-fixed work sites, then MWMA would still be concerned that compliance with OSHA’s Proposed Ergonomics Standard is a potentially unfunded mandate. Public sector solid waste programs could be forced to spend millions of dollars to purchase new equipment to meet compliance standards, and those public sector programs that contract with private haulers would eventually be faced with significant increased costs for contract services after private haulers transition to automated systems.

In 1993, The U.S. Conference of Mayors passed a resolution, entitled "Mandate Relief – National Unfunded Mandate Day," which called on Congress and the President to perform risk assessment and cost-benefit analyses on all legislation that requires mandates on state and local governments. The resolution opposed any regulation, policy proposal, or legislative bill that mandates programs and responsibilities on state and local governments without full federal funding.

In 1995, The Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (P.L. 104-4) was passed to "curb the practice of imposing unfunded Federal mandates on States and local governments; to strengthen the partnership between the Federal Government and State, local and tribal governments; to end the imposition, in the absence of full consideration by Congress, of Federal mandates on State, local, and tribal governments without adequate funding."

Title II of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 requires federal agencies to develop a process for obtaining meaningful and timely cost estimates only after consultations with state, local, and tribal governments. This process is required for any regulation costing more than $100 million to governments or the private sector.

Based on this Act, three activities are required: that the Congressional Budget Office provide cost estimates with a point-of-order procedure against new mandates costing more than $50 million; that agencies provide cost-benefit analyses of new regulations that cost more than $100 million; and that a study of existing mandates be conducted by the Advisory commission on Intergovernmental Relations.

Mandatory local participation requirements will potentially have enormous cost implications for local governments. Federal reimbursement of local governments could be required for all costs associated with compliance for OSHA’s Proposed Ergonomics Standard.