WASTE NOSTALGIA BY TIMOTHY BYRNE
A Smith and Sons (Waste Disposal) Seddon Atkinson Pacer 280 6x4 26 tonne chassis with a Jack Allen Heil Euro Half Pack (EHP) 40 cubic yard front
end loader lifting a Smith’s front end loader (FEL) container inside Smith’s Chimney Road facilities at Great Bridge (below).
Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council’s Dennis Elite (1) Series 6x2 mid lift axle chassis of 22,360kgs fi tted with
a Phoenix (1) Series body and Beta trade waste bin lifting equipment and Smith’s Volvo FL10 8x4 32 tonne Jack Allen Big Bite Mark V 31m3 industrial rear end loader discharging inside Smith’s enclosed waste transfer station.
The company grew through acquisition, acquiring Little Heywood Transport at Burton-Upon-Trent, and Cartaways in the Black Country area, plus companies such as Salop Waste Disposal and Wellings Waste Management, Shropshire.
The company also provided municipal waste collection services under their subsidiary Leigh Kleen for the local authorities of East Staff ordshire, Leominster and South Oxfordshire.
Leigh Interests sold the Leigh Kleen subsidiary in the early 1990s to UK Waste Management Ltd. The company later re-entered the municipal market via the Leigh Environmental brand, and won back their contract at South Oxfordshire and a new municipal contract with South Staff ordshire.
When Malcolm Wood died in 1993, the company appointed a new Chief Executive Shaun Bowden. Leigh continued to grow across the UK, and provided a diverse range of waste management services to both industry and the public sector.
Leigh Interests was acquired in the summer of 1997 by Compagnie Generale des Eau (ONYX), one of France’s largest waste management companies.
The red diamond logo of A. Smith and Sons (Waste Disposal) was also once a familiar sight across the streets of the Black Country. The company was based at Chimney Road in Great Bridge.
Originally coke and coal merchants, they diverted into the collection of industrial waste, and operated a fl eet of dry waste collection vehicles such as chain lift skip vehicles, roll-on-off s and
industrial rear end loaders.
The company operated an outdoor waste transfer station at their Chimmey Road site, licensed to handle both municipal and industrial waste. Sandwell MBC used to deliver waste to the site, for onward transport to controlled landfi ll sites.
In the mid 1990’s Smiths built an indoor waste transfer station and invested heavily in the development of the Chimney Road operations. The company added a front end loader collection vehicle, and fl eet of containers, to off er commercial and industrial customers an alternative option to the traditional rear end loader collection system.
In 1998, UK Waste Management Ltd acquired A. Smith and Sons (Waste Disposal) Ltd, which gave them an excellent fl eet of vehicles, a modern waste transfer station, and an excellent operating base to expand their presence across the Black Country. And so the last independent Black Country waste operator vanished.
By the late 1990s, all those well-known names had disappeared from the Black Country, swallowed up by mergers and buy-outs by larger, more nationwide operators.
Do you have any photographs of trucks operated by these companies, or of any other Black Country waste disposal businesses which no longer exist? If so, email them to:
editor@skiphiremagazine.co.uk
Waste Plan Ltd Leyland Bison (2) 6x4 24 tonne Jack Allen Big Bite Mark V industrial rear end loader emptying a 14 cubic yard rear end loader container in Brownhills, 1980 (below).
Cartaways Leyland Bison (2) 6x4 24 tonne chassis fi tted with
a Jack Allen Mark V 25 cubic yard Big Bite industrial rear end loader complete with mark one type skip lifting arms.
@SkipHireMag
SHM September, 2017
73
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