Waste Management Reseach - Research Paper Example

Sampling is concerned with selecting a section of the population (sample) to carry out research, in order to find out certain characteristic of a population. The objective of carrying out the sampling exercise will be to determine if there is any connection between operating street sweepers and contraction of chronic diseases. Random sampling method will be used. The sample population will consist of one hundred street sweeper operators and the same number of city staff who work in the office.

Confidentiality of the informants will be paramount and no one will be required to give their names or any other personal information. They will have to give their consent before the experiment begins. The questionnaires will be administered to the two groups separately, together with focus group discussions. This method will be used because it is cheap and not time consuming. A set of questions will be administered to the target audience. The type of questions will include the number of years that they have been doing the street sweeper operator job, their medical history and other socio-demographic factors.

The two groups of respondents will be required to fill in the questionnaires. The medical history will look at respiratory diseases such as bronchitis and asthma. End results will be presented in the form of graphs for analysis. If from the medical history, the street operators are proved to have acquired new infections, then, more studies will need to be conducted into the issue. The work environment of the street sweepers will therefore, be a hazard, requiring to be controlled or eliminated (Ericson, 2005). 2) What is the pel of the substances that you might detect?

Permissible exposure limits are enforced to protect workers from the negative effects of being exposed to substances that are a hazard to their health. They are divided into two according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency; PM 10, basically are particulates with a diameter of less than ten microns in diameter. The other is PM 2.5, which are particulates with a diameter of less than 2.5 microns. Particulates with a diameter of less diameter are inhaled and easily absorbed into the cells of the body and consequently to the bloodstream.

Consistent exposure to the particles will lead to contraction of respiratory diseases. The waste removed by the street sweeps is mainly composed of sulphates and nitrates from wearing out of roads and rubber form vehicle tires and gasoline combustion. Dust is also a crucial component, composed mainly of silica and metal. The following permissible exposure limits are established by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Sand has a permissible exposure limit of is 0.1mg/m3 , whose overexposure can lead to pulmonary diseases such as silicosis.

The pel of dust, on the other hand is 15mg/m3 ,can also damage the respiratory system. 3) What are your recommendations? Occupational health and safety should be available to the operators, which should among others include regular medical examination. Through these processes, infections will be able to be detected earlier on and treated. Other occupational health steps to reduce infections in the work place will include provision of protective gears such as masks (Sullivan, 2010); through such a process, infections will