Safety on an erosion control job isn’t a comfort feature. We had it scored.

Every contractor knows the posture. Bent at the waist or down on your knees, driving staple after staple into a slope. Nobody calls it a hazard. They call it the job.

That is exactly why it never gets fixed. The damage doesn’t come from one staple. It comes from the thousandth. No single moment gets written up, so the method never gets questioned. The cost arrives later, in backs and knees and hips, long after anyone can connect it to the slope.

So we measured it. In July 2025, Beth Mayotte, OTR/L, CIEK, of ErgoWorks assessed video of real erosion control blanket installation. She used TuMeke AI motion analysis to track posture and scored the work with REBA, the Rapid Entire Body Assessment, a widely used method that rates strain from posture and movement on a scale of 1 to 15.

Task	REBA score	Risk level
Flat ground, by hand	10	High
Flat ground, Staple Wasp	3	Low
Uphill, by hand	11	Very High
Uphill, Staple Wasp	6	Medium

On flat ground, the same installation moves from High to Low. Uphill, where hand stapling hits Very High, Staple Wasp brings it to Medium. REBA’s own action guidance treats the High and Very High bands as a signal to change the method. Staple Wasp is that change.

Medium is not zero. Uphill work is hard on a body whatever you carry, and a score of 6 says so. We would rather show you that number than hide it. A drop from Very High to Medium on the hardest part of the job is not a rounding error.

If you write safety plans, this is where the argument lands. Telling a crew to lift smart and take breaks is an administrative control. Changing the tool is an engineering control. Every safety professional knows which one ranks higher, and the way a blanket gets pinned down belongs on that list next to traffic control and trench protection.

Beth put it plainly: “Staple Wasp saves your hips, knees, and back. The results show it.”

Ergonomics is not a comfort feature. It is a risk you are already carrying, and now it has a number.

Want to feel the difference on your own project? Book a demo at staplewasp.com/demo. Safety manager, DOT project manager or distributor who wants the ErgoWorks summary? Email sales@staplewasp.com.