Comprised of Sam (Waste & Recycling Manager), Marc, Stuart, Rebecca, David and Chris
We collect recycling, we are contracted by City of York Council to collect the kerbside, residential recycling from the hard to reach areas of the city. We do it on load bearing tricycles and small fully electric vehicles. Alongside this we also run our own commercial recycling service collecting from tiny one person shops all the way up to national chains, museums and events.
First thing we do every morning is check the schedule for the day and plan whose doing which round and what vehicles we might need. Our residential service is fixed so we’ll collect from the same streets on the same day each week. What can change is the order we collect from the streets; if we know there’s building works or road closures for example we’ll swap things around so we don’t waste too much time sat in traffic. We also will swap things around depending on which businesses have booked collections. A lot of our business recycling customers are on an ad hoc basis, so they contact us as and when they need a pick up. As we check the schedule we’ll also check what containers, leafletting and letters might need to be distributed. So if needed we’ll get those items out at the same time.
Depending on the day and how busy the rounds are determines which vehicles we’ll use. Doris and Edith (our electric vehicles) don’t get a day off but the trikes alternate, on a Wednesday (our heaviest day) we’ll have both trikes and both vehicles.
Then it’s time to get our personal protective equipment (PPE) on, so that’s always gloves and steel toe boots but if the weather is fair we’ll be in high visibility t shirts and jumpers, if it’s wet or cold we’ll probably be in high visibility jackets and waterproof over trousers.
After that we’ll head out onto the streets to start the collection. We hand sort at the kerbside for both our residential and business customers so we can ensure we are only taking away the materials we can guarantee will be recycled. It also makes unloading back at St Nicks easier. The team are in constant contact throughout the day so they can try and coordinate getting back to unload at the same time. It makes it easier for the heavier materials!
Once the vehicles are full we’ll head back to unload, again by hand. So everything is carried from the vehicles and emptied into our skips ready for collection, it’s a good workout, especially if you’ve already been triking! We do have a winch to unload paper, but it’s hand operated rather than electric. Most days are two run days so the vehicles will all go out multiple times.
In the afternoons we’ll try and get maintenance done on the vehicles, keep the recycling site tidy and turn the compost heaps.
We also run Terracycle drop in sessions where people can bring the items that can’t typically be recycled to us to be recycled (full details here). Finally we also keep busy on projects such as our Precious Plastic York, RSA Neighbourly Zero Waste York work with businesses, and education works with schools, residents and groups around York. There’s a lot more to it than just collecting recycling!
