Comparative study of resilience engineering in solid waste treatment plants: A case study in two European cities.

BACKGROUND: Municipal solid waste treatment plants are industrial facilities with important occupational health and safety issues. Hence, a risk assessment system would be very useful to help workers to cope successfully with complexity when they are under pressure situations, such as loss of control or failures of the system safety. In recent years, Resilience Engineering has come up as a new proactive approach to improve and keep safety the complex systems. To evaluate Resilience Engineering the methods at our disposal are mostly qualitative, which are complex and difficult to compare due to their external validity.

OBJECTIVE: The present research proposes a method for the quantitative assessment of Resilience Engineering in the municipal solid waste treatment sector.

METHODS: The study was carried out as part of an EU SAFERA project in two European cities. The data were obtained from a survey of a sample of 328 workers of treatment plants.

RESULTS: The results indicated that priority must be given to improving top-level commitment, culture, preparedness and learning culture, while awareness and opacity emerges as positive results. Significant differences can be seen in the Resilience Engineering evaluation for different posts.

CONCLUSION: These findings allow practitioners and management with a view to implementing appropriate corrective measures to achieve high Resilience Engineering in the plant.