CRAWFORD HE’S OLD SCHOOL AND WE’RE PROUD OF IT
Cowboys ready and waiting to fl y-tip with economic uncertainty on horizon
LAST March I was driving out of our basement carpark, and had to wait while Fylde Borough Council’s finest refuse crews serviced our residual waste Eurobins.
I still get a buzz when I hear the engine of a passing RCV or a ‘brush motor’ (my favourite name for a mechanical street sweeper) as I probably relate more to their operators than some of the intellectuals who populate the industry nowadays. One of the Fylde Borough Council refuse workers came forward to apologise saying, “we’ll only be a few minutes”. I told them not to hurry as it was exactly 50 years that week since I’d started in the waste business and this was down memory lane for me. On hearing this, his waste colleague said: “Weren’t they using horses and carts in those days?”
Memories of ‘natural horsepower’
In fact, it wasn’t all that far from the truth. In the mid-60s I’d spent two summers working on a farm in Ayrshire that didn’t have a tractor and used two horses for fi eld work. So, I was well aware of all the vagaries (and fun) associated with using ‘natural horsepower’. However, the Fylde loaders’ comments brought home just how far we’ve journeyed in the waste management business over the decades. Our industry has seen a great infl ux of ‘consultants’ in the last few decades and I try not to get riled when I read articles
with phrases such as ‘drive awareness’; creatively slam-dunking their empty plastic bottles into recycling bins – or ‘incentivise’; and ‘deliver shareholder value’, which are often written by somebody who describes themselves as a ‘Change Professional’ – whatever that is?!
The Wild West
Then again there are other consultants, such as Jane Beasley, whose excellent work – along with Ray Georgeson – saw them pretend to be naïve householders looking for legitimate waste collection and disposal contractors. Their study revealed many cowboy services are out there off ering the public ‘cheap-o’ waste collection and disposal, where the profi ts are solely dependent on fl y-tipping the material they collect. Jane and Ray’s research also demonstrated that there are a lot of very competent people working in the industry, and our politicians ignore the advice at their peril.
It all comes back to the dreaded ‘B’ word
I’d also like people to accept the ‘Brexit’ bus has now left the terminal so we should now be concentrating on cherry- picking those parts of EU legislation that actually relate to the UK waste industry, rather than weep and wail about ‘what might have been’.
Get your big issue, here
The current ‘big issue’ (and believe me, there’s always been one since I started
training) is plastic waste and the adverse eff ect it’s having on our oceans. Last February I wondered why so much of it ended up in the world’s oceans. I soon found out when the CIWM president reported that two billion (yes I know it’s a shocker) of the world’s population doesn’t have access to an organised waste collection and disposal system – no wonder a lot of their waste ends up being washed into the oceans.
to be built across the UK to cope with our waste – but will it
actually happen?
Recently, my faith in our industry was fully restored when I sent a complimentary email to the Managing Director of AR Demolition about an excellent article he’d published, and he took the time to reply!
Cautionary tales
However, from Jane and Ray’s research, and with economic uncertainty on the horizon, it is apparent there are cowboys ready to round-up some cattle – the cattle being unsuspecting members of the public. So as far as I’m concerned common sense must remain at the centre of the industry, and it’s important we don’t lose sight of that fact. If you’re reading this, all the best and have a great 2019.
campaigning for a network of plastic waste treatment plants
Since then I’ve been
62 SHWM December, 2018
www.skiphiremagazine.co.uk
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