Analysis of publications on occupational safety and health in waste management: A systematic Review

Population, urbanization and economic growth have caused waste generation rates to increase exponentially in recent decades. The inadequate disposal of waste as well as the disregard for waste management policies can not only cause damage to society and the environment, but also to workers who deal with different types of waste. The present work aims to identify the main scientific studies that address waste management linked to occupational safety and health and its main characteristics in order to understand which types of waste are most studied. The PRISMA systematic review methodology was applied with two pre-defined keywords: “occupational safety” and “waste management”. From the 147 selected articles, it were found four main types of publication, 32 years of publication, 67 journals/books where the studies were published, 19 types of waste, and authors from 26 countries. In the last decade, publications were stronger in both general and the four most common waste categories (E-waste, hazardous waste, medical waste and municipal waste). 2019 was the year with the most publications, and the European Union published most studies, In relation to the type of publication, research articles were the most present format. The most used mean of publication was the Waste Management journal.