10 QUESTIONS WITH... JAMES LEE
Each month we ask a cleaning industry professional the Tomorrow’s Cleaning 10 Questions. This month, we chatted to James Lee, Managing Director of Cromwell Polythene.
Q5
HOW WOULD YOU IMPROVE THE CLEANING
INDUSTRY? I would encourage cleaning operatives and companies to become more of a commercial partner to their clients, rather than a service provider. Help drive proper waste segregation and recycling policies in facilities, since cleaning operatives are so often on the front line of waste collection. This is a particularly crucial issue when considering correct waste segregation in healthcare.
Q6 Q1
WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST JOB?
Funnily enough it was in the polythene business – I joined the family sack and bag merchanting company when I left school in 1979. Talk about a bag for life!
Q2
Q3 Q4
HOW DID YOU GET INTO THE CLEANING INDUSTRY?
Through the family business – we diversified into polythene, recycling and film extrusion for conversion to refuse sacks. Since then, we have supplied liners and sacks to the cleaning and janitorial sector – it is a major part of our business.
WHICH THREE WORDS DESCRIBE YOUR
PERSONALITY? Organised, ambitious and serious.
IF YOU COULD VISIT ONE PLACE IN THE WORLD,
WHERE WOULD YOU GO AND WHY? There’s something about Scotland – the mountains, lochs, and especially the Western Isles – I cannot get enough of, despite the weather, midges and all!
62 | 10 QUESTIONS
IF A NEW APPRENTICE WERE TO START
TOMORROW, WHAT’S THE ONE PIECE OF ADVICE YOU WOULD GIVE THEM? If you agree to do something, make sure you do it, to the best of your ability. For example, always act on client feedback – any response is better than none. Never be afraid to pass any kind of feedback from clients on to management either, it is invaluable information.
Q7
IF YOU WON THE LOTTERY TOMORROW, HOW WOULD
YOU SPEND YOUR FORTUNE? There are a few things I’d like to do for myself and my family, nothing very extravagant, just a bit more of what I already enjoy really. I’d donate more to my charities – the Cardiomyopathy Association, RNLI, Yorkshire Cancer Research, Sustrans, and the National Trust. I would set up a trust to support litter clean-up initiatives, especially schemes which bring about behavioural change.
Q8
IF YOU COULD HOST A DINNER PARTY AND INVITE
ANY THREE PEOPLE, DEAD OR ALIVE, WHO WOULD THEY BE AND WHY? Bernard Moitessier, he took part in the 1968 Sunday Times Golden Globe single-handed round the world
www.cromwellpolythene.co.uk
Check out next month’s issue to see what James Lee asked our next industry professional...
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yacht race. He was on course to win when, towards the end of the race, he decided to continue on to Tahiti.
Abraham Lincoln, a man who would not lie.
George Mallory, only he or his climbing partner Sandy Irvine could tell us whether they became the first ever to reach the summit of Everest in 1924.
Q9
WHAT, DO YOU THINK, IS THE FUTURE OF THE
CLEANING INDUSTRY? More joined-up thinking is necessary across the supply chain. I also think the quality and sustainability of cleaning products will continue to improve, with increased emphasis on recycled material used in packaging, sacks and bin liners, for instance, and crucially, more emphasis on real value for money by specifying known quality, guaranteed products, such as those offered through the CHSA Accreditation Schemes for mops, soft tissue, and refuse sacks.
Q10
IF YOU HAD A SUPERPOWER, WHAT
WOULD IT BE AND WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH IT? It would be amazing to have the ability to speak and express oneself properly, so that the audience completely gets where you’re coming from and understands. I suppose that’s what a decent education might do, but for me, for now at least, I’ll have to stick with my wife as translator – apparently she can read my mind, and for the last 36 years she’s been right, most of the time!
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