EIA: Drivers WantedEIA: Drivers Wanted

By Thomas Metzger

In September the Environmental Industry Associations (EIA) is releasing a long-awaited updated Safety Manual. This safety reference guide, updated by a team of respected industry safety professionals, will help safety practitioners and operations managers deal with the most significant safety challenges facing waste and recycling service companies. The manual is a great training tool for all levels of personnel: managers and supervisors, drivers and crew, equipment operators, process line workers and maintenance personnel.

The Environmental Industry Associations (EIA) released the application for its 2014 Driver of the Year Awards (DOTY). EIA’s prestigious DOTY Awards honor those drivers who operate their vehicles in a safe and responsible manner, who maintain outstanding performance records and whose contributions have enhanced the overall image of the waste and recycling industry. The 2014 nomination deadline is Friday, Nov. 15, 2013.

EIA President and CEO Sharon H. Kneiss said that the program is a core value of EIA. “The Driver of the Year program is part of our DNA,” she said. “It’s so important to honor safe driving and the men and women who keep our industry moving. This program lets us do both.”

Each year since the program was started EIA has honored drivers in a number of separate categories. In 2014, applicants will be broken into the following categories:

• Small Company
• Medium Company
• Regional Company Commercial
• Regional Company Industrial
• Regional Company Residential
• Large Company Commercial
• Large Company Industrial
• Large Company Residential
• Public Sector

Qualified nominees must be full-time waste and/or recycling haulers at the time of nomination and at the time of winner selection and award presentation.

For 2014, EIA has made the application process exclusively Web-based. By offering an easy-to-use online application that allows users to simultaneously pay for applications while completing the nomination, EIA hopes to improve the nominating experience. In addition, the Web-based system will ensure that nominators provide complete entries and that data is captured as efficiently, securely and accurately as possible. The system will allow judges to blindly evaluate the DOTY nominees, meaning they only will be able to see the data and information required for scoring.

The 2014 EIA DOTY program is underwritten by DriveCam.

Kneiss expressed her thanks to DriveCam for its support. “Like EIA, DriveCam is committed to the safety of workers in the waste and recycling industry,” she said.

DriveCam CEO and Chairman Brandon Nixon said he was very happy to support safe driving in this way. “At the heart of the DriveCam solution is our passion for improving driver behavior, and our unwavering dedication to helping drivers perform every day to the best of their ability. We are honored to be part of EIA’s efforts to recognize, reward, and ultimately reinforce safe driving behavior within the waste and recycling industry and, by extension, everyone on the road.”

Access the online application at www.environmentalistseveryday.org/DOTYawards.

Thomas Metzger is communications director at EIA and can be reached at [email protected].