SWANA, the Fairfax County Solid Waste Management Program, and key stakeholders in the safety and solid waste industry were on hand in Fairfax, Virginia today for the launch of the county’s Slow down to Get Around (SDTGA) awareness campaign at the County Government Center. Seventy participants, including County Supervisors, solid waste industry representatives, state and local officials, Fairfax County Department of Public & Environmental Services employees and SWANA staff, gathered to mark the launch of a public campaign throughout Fairfax County, Virginia, promoting awareness of Virginia’s new SDTGA law. Ultimately, Slow Down to Get Around is meant to help ensure waste and recycling services workers go home SAFELY from work every day. SWANA Executive Director David Biderman was the keynote speaker at the event, where he spoke of the origins of the slogan. “Twelve years ago, the Slow Down to Get Around message was first developed in response to an increase in the number of waste collection workers getting hit by cars.” Biderman added, “With the new Slow Down to Get Around Law effective in Virginia and other states, I urge all drivers to think of waste and recycling trucks not as an obstacle to go around quickly, but as having someone’s son, father, husband, or brother on or near it. We stop for school buses. We need to slow down around garbage trucks. Someone’s life depends on it.”
At the event, a number of state and local government officials spoke of the importance of increased public awareness about the law, “We shouldn’t need luck for sanitation workers to go home safely each night,” said John Foust, Supervisor, Dranesville District of Fairfax County. SWANA pledges to continue expanding communications regarding safety, including at the chapter level through the Safety Ambassador initiative. SWANA is holding a safety program in West Palm Beach, Florida on May 24, in proximity to where a fatal accident occurred this year.
For more information, visit https://swana.org/safety.