Judy Dixey

Opposition have been known to berate Camden over its bin collections but Lib Dem Judy Dixey first decided to spend a morning on the rounds – where she learnt of the abuse refuse workers get while trying to take away our rubbish

“I LOVE this job” – how many of us would expect to hear that from a man who collects our rubbish?

At the end of last year I went out with two teams on a “behind the scenes” trip. As a councillor, one of the main issues raised by residents concerns their rubbish collection. “They missed my bin, they never clean up, there is always rubbish littering the street after they’ve been.”

Hoping that I would see teams doing their best, I wanted to check out what were the challenges and difficulties in their job, and also what might make it better?

So I asked if I might accompany a team – and hear from them how it was?

Of course, the job has become better in the past 50 years; no longer do “dustmen” have one forearm double the size of the other because they are lifting heavy round metal bins on their shoulders to take to the lorries.

Instead there are wheelie bins, proper protective clothing, gloves, boots and restrictions concerning the extent to which the teams go up or down steps to fetch the residents’ wheelie bins.

Looking at one step, it seems tiny, but if you’re lifting heavy bins up and down steps constantly, it can have knock-on health impacts.

The main difficulty with the job, I discovered, is the abuse some of them have received from the public, which is hard to hear.

We don’t want to be disturbed by noisy lorries collecting our rubbish before a reasonable hour in the morning, ie 7am.

But then, it’s the school rush and the rush hour. Lorries inevitably block roads while they are making their collections, hence, drivers behind them getting angry!

But the teams are very attuned to the need to be quick, and move on as fast as they can, while moving consistently from door to door. Each is a team of three: two loaders and the driver who is the team leader; he may stay in the cab with cameras to check on traffic, or may get out to speed up the bin collections, depending on how the team is getting on.

If a member of the public gets angry, they are advised – and receive training – to stay calm and walk away.

Separate teams with different lorries handle black bin (general) rubbish and recycling (kitchen caddies and green bin).

The recycling lorries have two separate collection slots, so your kitchen waste will not contaminate a load of paper etc. If a kitchen waste bag splits en route to the lorry, they will sweep it up; unfortun­ately foxes are wise to the contents of a kitchen caddy and if a fox has already done his worst, they can’t stop to clean it up; that is down to the street team.

Foxes are so clever and wily, if your caddy is old and the plastic lid is no longer secure, they will get into it!

Ask for a new one from Veolia or the Camden website, otherwise you will see the remains of your supper strewn across the street.

I have had a dirty nappy left in my garden – not a nice surprise! Additional advice is to make sure that your caddy liner is not too full, because those liners are not strong plastic and split pretty easily.

You can use more than one a week; and they are available free of charge from libraries. From 2026, by law, every dwelling will have to have the facility to recycle food waste; that will be a challenge for Camden, with so many flats above shops on high streets – and so many foxes.

There are about 130 people in the Veolia task force, working for us Monday to Friday; they also cover commercial collections, including at weekends, so the guys work one weekend in four.

Currently, there is only one woman in the complement of loaders and drivers; more I’m sure would be welcome.
Why did my new friend “love the job”?

Because he is out in all weathers, and active; no need to go to a gym. And his team is good, they get on with each other, and get on with a job which is, in the main, satisfying.

My big take-away was that the teams really are working hard for us.

The challenges are the narrowness of the streets, close parking of cars (making it tricky to wheel the wheelie bins between them), but more especially the public and the anger and rudeness the teams face – perhaps not daily, but too often.

I “followed the van” in residential streets, not round estates or along high streets, so it was limited in scope, but I gained some good insights into a service we take for granted when it works and about which we can get really angry when it goes wrong.
Performance is constantly monitored and problems checked up. If there is an issue, don’t hesitate to report it directly to Camden and Veolia; and come to your councillor if it persists and you don’t get a satisfactory response.

But if you have a good team, and your rubbish collection is pretty good, do send in compliments and thanks.

I am very grateful to the Veolia and Camden teams who facilitated the trip, and to the loaders and drivers who took some time to chat briefly with me before carrying on with their really important work.

Judy Dixey is a Liberal Democrat councillor in Belsize ward