Waste management during the COVID-19 outbreak: Investigating a critical sector in crisis

COVID-19疫情正在将日常生活垃圾转变为生物危害。冠状病毒可在人与人之间传播，但COVID-19也可在表面上持续数天（货车Doremalen等人，2020年）。因此，这一流行病严重影响了废物管理部门，导致处置和回收服务中断，并使废物处理工人面临风险。在COVID-19出现之前，与英国其他行业相比，这个高度市场化和放松管制的行业-包括3，000多家公司-已经与死亡和受伤率升高有关（HSE 2019）。该项目旨在探讨英国废弃物管理行业在多大程度上做好了准备，以应对新冠肺炎疫情带来的前所未有的挑战。该跨学科项目与国家行业协会和地方当局合作，调查这一关键行业如何应对新冠肺炎疫情，以及如何受到新冠肺炎疫情的影响，特别是在工人安全方面。它旨在通过三种相互关联的方法减轻疫情期间与废物管理有关的危害：1）该项目生成有关该部门迅速变化的废物管理做法的紧急数据。该项目采用社会研究方法来检查关键过程，包括收集、处置和管理; 2）该项目与关键工作人员合作，绘制该部门的地图，并设计一个流行病工具包，以扩大工人在决策中的声音; 3）该项目与废物工业安全和健康论坛合作，制定指导方针和行业报告，以加强当局之间的协调。这项研究既解决了当前的危机，也有助于未来的准备计划。

The COVID-19 outbreak is transforming everyday household waste into a biohazard. Coronaviruses are transmitted person-to-person, however COVID-19 also persists on surfaces for several days (van Doremalen et al. 2020). Consequently, this pandemic is severely impacting the waste management sector; causing disposal and recycling service disruptions, and putting waste workers at risk. Before the emergence of COVID-19 this heavily marketised and deregulated sector - comprising over 3,000 companies - was already associated with elevated rates of death and injury compared to other sectors in the UK (HSE 2019). This project asks to what extent the UK waste management sector is equipped to meet the unprecedented challenges generated by this pandemic.The interdisciplinary project works in partnership with national industry associations and local authorities to investigate how this critical sector is responding to, and affected by, COVID-19 - particularly in terms of the safety of its workers. It aims to mitigate hazards related to waste management during the outbreak through three interrelated approaches: 1) the project generates urgent data on the sector's rapidly changing waste management practices. It employs social research methods to examine pivotal processes, including collections, disposal, and administration; 2) the project collaborates with key workers to map the sector and design a pandemic toolkit that can amplify workers' voices in decision-making; and 3) in collaboration with the Waste Industry Safety and Health Forum, this project creates guidelines and an industry report to enable greater co-ordination between authorities. This research addresses both the immediate crisis and contributes to future preparedness plans.