I have a confession: I love a good rummage about in other people’s rubbish – much to my husband’s chagrin – as it never fails to surprise me the things people throw away. So, imagine my delight when the opportunity arose to follow a waste auditor around for the day. The only downside: I wasn’t allowed to take anything home.

I meet WastesWork team leader, Ethan and his crew, Emily and Lolek, at the street of 40 houses whose waste we’re taking away to analyse. It’s 6am because we want to get the rubbish before the regular waste and recycling crews.

With introductions out of the way, Ethan sets off to assess how much waste is in each receptacle as well as the type of waste. In this particular street, there is a green 240-litre wheelie bin for garden waste, a caddy for food waste, a recycling box and the residual waste bin bags, mostly housed in black 180-litre wheelie bins. He opens each bin and writes down an approximation – ‘half full, plastic’, ‘three-quarters, garden waste’ etc – to ensure some consistency with the tally at the end, once the waste has been sorted.

I hadn’t really thought about how we were going to collect all the waste and so seeing Lolek lifting wheelie bins and emptying them into dumpy bags comes as a surprise. It dawns on me this will be a physically demanding morning and perhaps I should start taking photos before I’m roped in to help!

As we work our way round the houses (a nice, leafy suburb), quite a few of the householders come out to see what we’re up to. This is a follow up from six months ago, so the residents know all about our activity. Most people seem genuinely enthused and interested, though Ethan explains it’s not always thus: “A lot of people think of us as the bin police and we can get a pretty frosty reception. That’s why it’s imperative that we make sure we pick up all the waste and don’t leave anything that could inconvenience residents.”

That day, however, people are in good spirits after a weekend in the garden (deduced from the amount of green waste Lolek is hauling around). One resident even comes marching over to tell me what “a good job” the auditors are doing.

The team work quickly and efficiency, as well they might as it transpires that both Ethan and Lolek have been with the company since its beginnings in 2006. What’s more, it turns out they’ve been doing waste audits solidly for nine weeks when I join them, up and down the country. Ethan points out that this long period of work is unusual, with the norm being up to two weeks. With obvious relief he exclaims: “There’s just three and a half more days to go and then we get a rest.”

Once the bins have all been emptied into the bags, the team has the task of fitting those bags into the van. It’s worth pointing out again how manual and demanding this job is. After all, the recycling and residual waste crews would be assisted by trucks with lifts and automatic tippers; our guys and girl are lifting it all themselves, and yes, some require two people to lift. I ask Emily how she’s doing and she smiles and just says “tiring”. Lolek jokes that this is their gym session.

Then there’s one last check around the neighbourhood to make sure nothing’s been missed – no rogue bin, hiding. “There are so many different nuances between streets and the regular bin men know the streets well and so know where the bins are hidden”, explains Ethan.

It was a squeeze to fit the 60 full dumpy bags into the 15-cubic metre truck, and I am surprised by the amount of waste from just one street, but buoyed by the amount of recycling. Ethan explains that the street is deemed an ACORN 2 on a geodemographic classification that runs from 1 to 5: “[This is] quite an affluent area with people who are making the most of the recycling facilities. They’ve got back gardens, they are either detached or semi-detached households earning over £50k a year. ACORN 5 households are the least wealthy – they often struggle with their recycling schemes, their waste can be quite different, not so rich in broadsheet newspapers and wine bottles, they can also lack space for storing recycling and may not be so switched on to benefits of participating in schemes.”

Back at the depot, after a quick café stop, everyone gets to work setting up tables and surrounding themselves with boxes in which to sort the waste.

At this point, a quick sort sees the garden and food waste separated so we’re left with just what the residents deemed ‘residual’ or recyclable. Now, I think, this sorting malarky sounds easy enough, I can do this!

Well... I had thought there might be a few primary categories: metal, plastic, film, food, paper, textiles, but what I hadn’t prepared for were the sub-categories. Take food, for instance; the auditors have four boxes: one for cooked food waste; one for vegetable peelings; one for whole vegetables; one for whole packaged food (so many pastries!).

Each bag is ripped open on the table and then sorted. Those who’ve been doing this for a while are eye-whizzingly fast and the banter has developed between the crews. Ethan lets me have a quick go, but, boy, am I slow (and not helped by my exclamations every few minutes that ‘I could reuse this’). There’s no dizzying conveyer belt, but it’s still quite confusing.

As for the smell, well it could have been because it was a sunny day and we were outside, but I didn’t notice anything unpleasant. A bit of a whiff, maybe, but nothing offensive.
No, the offensive bit is the sheer scale of waste from just 40 houses. Though I’ve worked in the industry for a while now, I’m still shocked by the amount of whole food, still cradled in its wrapping, I see go into the grave. Barrie, father of WastesWork’s founder Sarah Knapp, shares my thoughts: “Aside from elderly couples and singles, all households are guilty of wasting food, particularly households with young children. Who can pass up the buy one get one free offer? But the free packet so often ends up in the bin, gone off before it could be used.

“We can get very annoyed. When we see unopened food being thrown away by a household you do think, ‘It’s not a freezer.’”

Moreover, I’m amazed by the amount of potentially reusable items discarded from just the one street. Nosing around the other team’s cache, I notice so many small items of WEEE that perhaps could have been repaired, I am disappointed with the householders.

There are, thankfully, regular tea breaks, during which I catch up with other team members. Joe, another long-standing team leader, explains how the work varies: “Sometimes we just focus on one fraction of the waste… to see how much, say paper, people are throwing away. This is compositional analysis and it’s being done several times – we’ve already done it once here and we’ll do it again and again. Last time we didn’t do a trade or a school analysis in a particular area – those factions didn’t want to participate – but when the data came back to all the councils surrounding the area they obviously wanted to then do it.”

And as for training? “You train on the job”, says Joe. “If you’re not supervising it’s not difficult once you know what the categories are. If you had someone who was new you would always have an experienced person with you.”

I had assumed that it might be difficult to recruit people into the waste audit life, but not so says Barrie. “Their salaries compensate. You’re out in the open and get to see masses of the country so it’s quite enjoyable really.”

I also discover that many of the auditors have other lives as artists, musicians, and so on. Though no one will tell me what they get paid, one guy sums it up thus: “Put it this way: we can work for just a few months a year and still get a very decent salary to last the whole year.” Ethan, to whom strings of musician and novelist can be added to his bow, concurs: “If we did it all year round it would be a very well-paid job.”

But it’s not just the pay that keeps the auditors motivated. Ethan tells me that it’s had a profound effect on his life in terms of consumerism and the waste that he produces. “Doing this job brings it all home. I now know Britain and its waste. People don’t see all the trucks coming and dumping their waste. When you see that, when you go back home you start recycling.

“I think everyone should be forced to do this for two weeks every year. They’ll go home and they’ll think, ‘Why am I buying this? I’ll only have to throw it away again.’”

Joe echoes this sense of responsibility: “I’m a lot more conscious of using things up, particularly food. It also makes you think that you are doing something reasonably worthwhile.”

The auditors are also keen to express their opinions on the waste situation in the UK. The answer, they feel, is incineration: “The highest point in Essex is a landfill so something’s got to change. I’d say ‘burn it’,” says one. Barrie adds: “We should go for incineration everywhere and give people free electricity close by. Sweden has gone back to incineration and they probably have one of the best recycling operations of any country in the world. But it’s expensive and it’s difficult to change people’s perceptions.”

With time running out for me, I decide to shadow Joe and his partner in grime who are weighing the different boxes before putting the waste into recycling (glass, paper, cardboard, plastic) or in the skip for landfill. Unfortunately, this includes the toys and other items that for legal and health and safety reasons can’t be recovered.

The recorded data is then sent to Knapp, who does the number crunching. Although I’m not privy to any weighing details, it’s truly amazing to see the stuff that could have been recycled, easily.

With one last wistful look back at the Dualit toaster I spotted and the masses of children’s toys and a goodbye to the friendly bunch of waste auditors I’ve spent an eye-opening day with, I’m off to catch my train home. I’m a little bit grubby, but oh so much more determined to spread the recycling message. First step, an audit of
my own…