WASTE RECYCLING
JOHN CRAWFORD
JOHN trained at Saltcoats Burgh in the late 60s. After a decade he moved to PD Beatwaste Ltd/ Wimpey Waste Management Ltd. He then joined the Civil Engineering Dept at Strathclyde University before posts at Renfrew, Hamilton, Inverness and East Ayrshire Councils. A Fellow of CIWM, he served on their Scottish Centre Council from 1988-2009. He is a Fellow of the Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland and was their President between 1991-92.
The lighter side of the business
WHEN everybody is worried about the future of their livelihoods, I thought it might be cheerier to reflect on the days when we used to bring out, empty and return galvanised steel dustbins from the back doors of houses.
We issued crews with boiler suits or overalls, boots and gloves annually but there was no requirement (pre-HSW) to wear them. All employees (including me) were entitled to a third week’s holiday after five years’ continuous service with the council and refuse collectors and street sweepers earned around half as much as labourers in the private sector.
But there were some perks: paid holidays, sick pay and a pension scheme as well.
Sorting over bins wasn’t allowed but didn’t stop our crews from doing it to recover empty bottles (for the deposits), copper, lead or brass - or indeed anything that could be sold on. Copper wire was often burned at the landfill late in the afternoon to remove the sheathing (occasionally starting a landfill fire) with the driver normally designated to collect all the material (called ‘totting’
in England: ‘scoof’ or ‘scran’ in Scotland) and sell it with complex formulae then used to allot the shares among individual crew members. There was an unofficial rule on our landfill that as long as the rubbish was on the RCV, it belonged to the crew but as soon as it landed at the tipping face, it went to the landfill operators. Sometimes the crew would spot something of value emerging from the load as it was being tipped. resulting in spectacular dives (that would have impressed David de Gea) to grab it before it landed.
These were the days before ‘adult glamour publications’ were readily available and were mostly delivered by post in plain envelopes. We had one home where the single, middle-aged occupant received a regular consignment every month and religiously dumped last month’s issues in his dustbin, so there was always a scramble among the crew to get to his bin first. There was another home where the lady of the house would often put on a display of ‘interpretive dancing’ (suitably attired or otherwise) in her lounge when the crew were due in her street.
And of course there were the characters: the single bloke who got his wages on Friday afternoon and went straight across to the bookmakers nearby and put it all on a horse. If it won, we wouldn’t see him until the following Wednesday, but if it lost, he’d have to borrow money from the foreman against next Friday’s pay packet!
Or those hot summer days when somebody produced a bottle of lemonade, took a swig then passed it round the crew. Each recipient immediately wiped the top of the bottle with his (often un-gloved) hand, poked his forefinger inside then had his swig. If I suggested it was more hygienically safer to simply swig without ‘cleaning the top’, they’d reply "But I don’t know where his mouth has been!"
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