Recycling Matters – but caravan on top of a skip proves a step too far!

Skip hire operators are at the forefront of recycling these days, which means that even when they collect a skip filled with used office furniture and scrap IT equipment, environmental companies will do whatever they can to recycle the contents, reducing the load on the environment.  It’s an increasingly valuable service and operators often find creative ways to re-use the waste, viewing waste as a valuable commodity which can be repurposed.

Experienced Welsh waste operator GD Environmental is a good example of an operator who has been successful in reducing landfill by collaborating creatively where they can, for example, they worked Coleg y Cymoedd to create an upcycling project which saw art students turn scrap materials into furniture, art and sculptures – quite literally turning trash into treasure.

The good news is that the company currently recycles at least 98% of the waste they collect – and they’re working on the other 2%, which is really positive and playing a massive role in helping the environment.

So can they take anything and turn it around? It seems the phrase here is ALMOST everything – because there really are no limits to what some people will stick in (or on) a skip.  Things like hazardous and medical waste need to be disposed of in a safe and legal way, and are not suitable, but collectors never cease to be amazed by the contents they find.  From brand new items in some cases, to garden furniture that can be re-purposed, it’s certainly an interesting job.

In what the company describes as one of the oddest collection requests they’ve dealt with to date, waste collector Tyrone Covell once arrived to a skip collection to find the customer had literally dumped a whole caravan on top of a skip they had hired!  Perhaps had the caravan been broken down into pieces, some parts may have been re-usable, but the caravan was literally just balanced on top!

Unsurprisingly, the company advised the customer that they could not collect the skip like that, not least because it wasn’t safe, however to date it remains one of the oddest collection requests they have had – so unusual that, while the customer had been provided with a list of items that could not be placed in the skip, whole caravans were not listed because, as a staff member pointed out, “we didn’t say you can’t put a caravan in there as it’s blatantly obvious you can’t put a caravan in a skip!”

Image credit: GD-Environmental.co.uk