There are mounting calls for waste operatives to check bins for rough sleepers, after police officers in Bristol and Dublin launched investigations last week into two separate incidents of human remains being found at recycling sites.

Dublin incident

On Thursday (31 July), police officers from Ireland’s national police service, the Garda, were called to a recycling centre in Ballyfermot (thought to be Thornton’s Recycling), after the lower part of human leg was found amidst the recycling waste. On Friday (1 August), more remains were discovered, including an upper part of a human leg and other bones.

These body parts were removed to Tallaght Hospital where a post-mortem examination was carried out by the Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis, which determined that the body parts are male, and both come from the same person.

The cause of death has not been yet determined and there has been no other information released as of yet regarding race, age or nationality of the deceased. However, it has been reported that the incident may have occurred after a rough sleeper was accidentally crushed in a waste bin, whilst other news outlets are reporting that the gardaí are ‘fearful a murder may have been committed and the remains dismembered and dumped in refuse in a bid to conceal the crime’.

An investigation and search of the site is ongoing and is ‘expected to continue for a number of days’.

Bristol incident

Also on Friday (1 August), officers from Avon and Somerset Constabulary were called to a waste management site in Avonmouth run by Biffa, after workers discovered ‘what they thought were remains’ at one of their units.

On arrival, the police confirmed that the remains were body parts.

Over the weekend, the police identified the deceased as Matthew Symonds, aged 34, of ‘no fixed address’ in Swindon. His death is being treated as ‘unexplained’ and a post-mortem examination is being carried out. It is thought that the body had been transported to the Avonmouth site in a commercial recycling waste collection from Swindon.

His next of kin have been informed and Wiltshire Police specialist Family Liaison Officers are providing support.

Senior investigating officer, DCI Gareth Bevan, said: “The incident is being investigated and police are following several lines of inquiry to establish the circumstances surrounding Mr Symonds' death.

“Police enquiries so far suggest the body was transported with commercial recycling waste collected in Swindon and therefore the focus of the investigation will be in that area going forward.

"The investigation is at an early stage and we are keeping an open mind about the circumstances leading to Mr Symonds' death. Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this very difficult time."

In a statement, a Biffa spokesperson confirmed that a body was received at the Avonmouth Transfer Station on Friday, adding: “Biffa takes health and safety very seriously and is conducting its own internal investigation, into the circumstances surrounding the incident."

Raising awareness of rough sleeping in bins

Earlier this year Biffa helped launch a report into the common problem of rough sleepers finding shelter in bins in a bid to ‘enable homeless charities to better communicate with rough sleepers about the dangers of sheltering in bins, whilst helping raise awareness of the issue amongst waste management crews and the public at large’.

The ‘Research into the issues, risks and prevention of people sleeping in waste containers’ was undertaken by the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM), in partnership with Biffa and StreetLink – a service provider for rough sleepers – to ‘establish the scale of [people rough-sleeping in bins]; where these incidents have been occurring; and in what type of containers people are most commonly found’.

It found that of the 176 organisations responsible for waste management (including companies and local authorities) surveyed, 28 respondents had reported finding people sheltering in bins. However, only 24 per cent of all respondents had in place a policy for tackling the issue of people sleeping in bins/waste containers (with 66 per cent saying they did not have such a policy in place, and 11 per cent not knowing).

Perhaps the most worrying finding was that 40 per cent of the time, anyone found sheltering in a bin was not discovered until the loading operation had begun, while 16 per cent of the time, the person was only found once actually tipped out of the bin.

In one case, there was a fatality following the person being tipped out of the bin.

Instances such as these are not uncommon, as in 2012, the body of Canadian student Garrett Elsey, 22, was found at New Earth Solutions' Avonmouth MBT plant. An inquiry later determined that Elsey had been crushed to death after falling asleep in a waste bin, which was later emptied and the contents compacted.

Find out more about the perils of rough sleeping in bins.