OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH PROCEDURE IN WASTE PICKERS COOPERATIVES IN THE COLOMBIAN CARIBBEAN

Abstract

The objective of the study was to describe the occupational health procedures in recycling cooperatives. A descriptive and field research methodology was used for this purpose, under a non-experimental, cross-sectional design. The population consisted of recycling cooperatives, and the selected sample was one hundred (100) unionized recyclers from the Colombian Caribbean. Observation was employed as a research technique, and a questionnaire was used as the data collection instrument. The questionnaire was composed of items based on a Likert-type attitude scale with five response alternatives. The results showed a high level of compliance with the indicators of Diagnosis, Integration, and Management, suggesting a favorable trend in the management of occupational health within recycling cooperatives in these areas. However, medium compliance was observed for the Security Plan indicator, and a significant weakness in the Infrastructure Design indicator, where the low dispersion of the obtained data suggests consistency in the responses, revealing a noticeable absence of such guidelines. This is mainly because most cooperatives do not engage in planning, and the reasons for this are generally not well understood.