Title: Perception of fire-risk at temporary storage sites of organic materials, waste fuels and recyclables

Authors: Muhammad Asim Ibrahim; Stina Alriksson; Norin Sultana; William Hogland

Addresses: Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Department of Biology and Environmental Science, Linnaeus University, SE 391 82, Sweden ' Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Department of Biology and Environmental Science, Linnaeus University, SE 391 82, Sweden ' School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University, SE 391 82, Sweden ' Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Department of Biology and Environmental Science, Linnaeus University, SE 391 82, Sweden

Abstract: The risk of fires at municipal solid waste (MSW) storage sites is of great concern because such fires not only result in material losses worth millions of Euros annually but also have deleterious effects on both human health and the environment. Keeping in view that management decisions addressing risk of fires cannot be divorced from human psychology regarding safety, a questionnaire survey was designed for which 187 respondents gave a response rate of 33%. Survey results showed that three types of biases: optimism, attribution and availability bias, prevail among managers of waste management companies. Furthermore, biased respondents had experienced higher frequency of fire incidents and preferred low cost risk averting technologies. It is concluded that there is a need to acknowledge the existence of biases and to improve the decision making skills of managers with the help of risk awareness programmes and implementation of government steering tools to reduce risk of spontaneous fires.

Keywords: risk perception; fire incidents; self-ignition; temporary storage; waste fuels; recyclable materials; waste management; occupational safety; optimism bias; attribution bias; availability bias; fire risk; organic materials; municipal solid waste; MSW storage; risk awareness; spontaneous fires; managerial bias.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEWM.2014.064085

International Journal of Environment and Waste Management, 2014 Vol.14 No.2, pp.165 - 180

Received: 09 Feb 2013
Accepted: 22 Sep 2013
Published online: 30 Aug 2014 *

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