Waste and recycling collectors are responsible for cleaning, collecting, transporting and sorting various garbage. The purpose of this study is to investigate relationships between work-related conditions, safety perception and safety education in waste and recycling collectors. A total of 675 workers who collect domestic, street, recyclable or food waste were selected by stratified sampling in the waste and recycling industry. A structural equation model was used to analyze whether work-related conditions and safety perception affect safety education factors and whether there exists a causal relationship between them. According to the results of structural equation modeling, work-related conditions directly affect the level of safety education and indirectly affect the level of safety education by having an impact on safety perception. Waste and recycling collectors are more likely to participate in safety education and to be more concerned about safety education as company size and salaries increase. The results of this study suggest that accident-prevention measures that are appropriate to job characteristics are effective because worker’s features and their safety climate are different according to job type in the service industry.
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