Personal perspective


Why small skip hire outfits are suffering


Richard Hunt has been in the waste and recycling industry since 1977 and has seen many changes over the last three decades that he believes are not all for the good. He explains why.


Richard Hunt Chairman Richard Hunt Group


B


ACK IN the late 1970s you could operate a skip hire business without a waste carrier’s licence and it was possible to transfer waste in a yard


without a waste transfer licence. Nowadays you cannot even put plasterboard in a skip. The red tape has destroyed the industry


for local small skip hire operators. There is no help from the government to encourage small operators to run their business correctly. Added to which, you constantly read about


skip operators being prosecuted for dumping illegally. A skip operator will go to a local authority


and try and obtain planning on the yard to allow transfer of waste. Ninety nine times out of 100 they will not stand a dog’s chance of getting planning. If your face does not fit with the planning officers, and you are not a friend of the local councillors you have more chance of flying to the moon than getting planning permission. Local government does not encourage the


local skip industry to recycle their waste and all you get is the planning officers’ ‘not in my back yard’ attitude. Consequently this results in the skip operator


trying to keep his business going by tipping his skips in various


yards illegally as the big operators who have the waste transfer stations are now in the ascendency and local


operators are struggling. The reason for this is that the skip operator will charge approximately £180 for a standard skip and the big operator that runs the transfer station will charge £120 to the local skip operator to allow the skip in to be tipped. This leaves a margin of about £60. This


means the local skip operator needs to do around 10 skips per day just to survive. In addition, it is normal practice for the


waste transfer operator to have his own fleet of skip lorries and it is not in his interest to let competitors tip on his doorstep unless he charges them the earth to tip. This is why there is not a level playing field


in the skip hire industry for local small skip operators and usually the big boys will have more influence over the local authority. Most small operators, if they had the


cooperation from local authorities and the environment agency etc could operate a small recycling centre very effectively, but this is not encouraged. Official figures show that 8.8 million tons of


waste were collected in 2007/8 and some 1.5%; equalling 134,000 tons was dumped. By 2008/9 this figure had risen to 157,000 tons being dumped. By 2009/10 this figure had increased again to 184,00 tons meaning that in a short space of time another 50,000 had been dumped in landfill since 2007/8. The big boys, including local contractors,


are still not doing a good enough job and it is also fair to say that some of the operators who I know personally are targeted and victimised by the local environment agency just so they can justify their job. They are an easy target to attack and you don’t get brownie


points for doing a good job regarding operations, documentation and health and safety. It is also a fact that the Health & Safety


Executive does not monitor various recycling yards across the country to prevent accidents and major incidents. You only have to look at the scrap yard that went up in flames under the M1 near Watford. I do not blame the operator; I blame the local


authority. No doubt the operator was paying his licence fees, etc and he should have had visits from the local authority officers to steer him in the right direction. A lot of accidents can be prevented if


awareness campaigns and guidance booklets for the local operators were provided by people from the industry who understood the risks. During my time of operating skip lorries and


waste transfer stations, the only correspondence I got from a local authority or the Environment Agency were court summonses; certainly no guidance or booklets. I feel very sorry for the small skip operators


because they are ignored by the local authorities while central government just wants to tax them in any way they can. With the high costs of fuel and other expenses such as local authority council tax, quite frankly, it is amazing that any small skip operators survive. I predict that, like the giant supermarkets


who have pushed out small shopkeepers, in the next 10 years the small skip hire operator will disappear and the big boys will have total control of skip collections and waste transfer stations etc. I considermyself a friend and great supporter


of all the skip hire operators and it is sad to see them being pushed out. RWW


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