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Details of shocking conditions at Baltimore sanitation facilities have emerged after the city Inspector General released a report into the Department of Public Works.
The report focused on complaints from nine facilities with primarily solid waste workers, with complaints including a broken HVAC system with zero to no air conditioning, and bathrooms with only hot water coming from the sink, among other issues, according to WMAR.
At one location, employees needed to ask for toilet paper because the men’s stalls did not have any.
“The toilet paper is stored in a storeroom with a supply employee,” the report read. The Inspector General requested that the practice stop immediately and “toilet paper be placed in the stalls for solid waste workers and laborers.”
The issues led the Inspector General to release an initial report earlier this month but the problems continued, the outlet reported. Some of the employees reportedly suffered from heat-related illnesses and at least one person passed out.
The Inspector General’s office has asked the city for records about all heat-related illness training given to employees within the last three years.
Employees also said that some departmental vehicles also do not have air-conditioning.
The Inspector General’s report continued stating that it had located equipment that could help with conditions that had been sitting around unused, some of which was being stored in facility showers.
The agency “observed approximately twenty unopened boxes of ice chests and dozens of unopened insulated water dispensers,” the report stated. “A supervisor stated that the insulated water dispensers did not fit on the newer garbage trucks and that some employees did not want them.”
The Independent reached out to Baltimore city officials for comment.
