Accidents in the Sector of Collection and Transport of Waste

Waste management makes a large use of road transportation vehicles to collect waste from producers and transport it to various destinations, like waste-to-energy plants, recycling facilities and landfills. Waste transport then contributes to increasing the probability of roads accidents and the risk for population and operators. The present paper provides an overview of the causes of accidents involving waste collection/transport vehicles in Italy, with the aim of shedding light on this phenomenon. This research identified 1,200 newspaper articles on road accidents involving waste collection/transport vehicles from 1999 to 2022. An in-depth study was also carried out in four Italian cities, based on reports made to local authorities. Apparently, the number of accidents seems very low compared to national statistics on total road accidents. However, the real number of accidents may be much higher, since many accidents may have not been reported for different reasons discussed in the paper.