Enhancing Safety, Efficiency and Consistency – OCWR's Playbook/SOPs

About the Program

Category: County Resiliency (Best in Category)

Year: 2021

Like a football team’s playbook, OC Waste & Recycling’s Playbook of Standard Operating Procedures informs every team member what they need to do to “score,” or in our case perform each task correctly, uniformly and safely. The Playbook is a set of more than 250 standard operating procedures (SOP’s). It provides step-by-step instructions for more than 250 landfilling operations jobs. Each SOP identifies the minimum number of staff required to perform each job, who should be involved (e.g. Laborer, Equipment Operator, Waste Inspector, Engineer, Project Manager, etc.), required personal protective equipment (PPE), required materials and tools, potential hazards involved and how to avoid them, and how to safely perform each job. For easy access, The Playbook was built in Zavanta, an online platform. This allows employees to have access to it anywhere at any time, even on a tablet when there is no internet connectivity. The Playbook is an effective tool for employees to use to ensure they are performing their jobs as safely and efficiently as possible so they return home to their families in the same manner they walked into work that morning. Safety is held to a high standard at OC Waste & Recycling (OCWR), so it is important that we keep our employees safe and provide them with the right tools and access. The Playbook breeds a culture of safety, and in turn, contributes to reducing the number of incidents and accidents that can happen in a landfill and any potential costs associated with it.