85. Talking rubbish...with the man who collects it, the No. 1 Binman

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hello, welcome to Talking Rubbish, a weekly podcast delvede into the world of recycling, discussing the truth behind snappy headlines and wonder snapped stories. I'm James Piper, author of the rubbish book. I'm joined by Robby Stanford, my far from rubbish friend. And we are joined today by Ashley, the number one bin man, our far from rubbish guest. Hi Robbie. Hey James. We are fresh from an unbelievable day of BBC coverage, aren't we? Not just us, Ashley too, our number one bin man. I had someone messaging me yesterday. They said, Oh, I hear the the biggest binfluencer is going to be on Radio 5 Live. And they were like, Which of you is it? I said, Neither. I don't know who it is. And he said, That's this guy called Ashley. So that's amazing. We're interviewing him tomorrow. So this is a complete coincidence that we the BBC and people will recognise this as a couple of weeks after this event. The BBC did a big thing on food waste. It meant we were all over the place. I mean, Robbie, you were on the red sofa. How did how did that feel? Red sofa, BBC breakfast.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Yeah, it was very fun. I mean, I was maybe a little bit too casual, reclined on the sofa with my arm on the sofa back. I did did get a bit of feedback that maybe I took the uh producer's advice a little too literally when they said uh make yourself at home. So I did.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

That's what they like, yeah. I also got on BBC Breakfast, so both talking rubbish co-hosts were on BBC Breakfast within like half an hour of each other, but mine was pre-recorded. And then I was busy on Radio 4, three local stations, BBC News. It was just an unbelievable day. I was reflecting on it. It was great that the BBC took this big news story about food waste and councils implementing food waste and said, How do we get this across all of our local stations? They did a really good job doing that.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Yeah, no, it was brilliant to see that they actually cared about food waste uh and also the fly tipping issue.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Should I tell you about BBC Bristol? I arrived like half an hour early, okay? So I'm sat in reception. I've been to the studio quite a few times, BBC Bristol, and the security guard rang in and said, you know, James is here for an interview. And then he was like, What time's your interview? And it was getting quite close to the time. And he just kept ringing them, going, Guys, your interviewee is here. Is he not going on the radio in the next couple of minutes? And so in the end, this lady came to get me, gave me a cup of water, and I said, Oh great, okay, when am I going on? She went, Oh, hang on, I'll just check. Literally ran out of the room and said, Come in, come in, come in. And I I'm walking in to a live studio that's just going. And uh, we're just joined by James Piper from talking while I'm sitting down putting the headphones on, you know, and it's immediately like, hello. And I thought, God, that was so close, you know, within seconds of being a disaster, until I listened back to the segment where, you know, for a couple of minutes before she'd been going, I'm not sure where my guest is. Uh there's some technical issues going on, and where's my guest? She kept saying there were technical issues, but then during the interview, proceeded to go, thanks for coming into the studio. So I was like, Everyone's gonna know the technical issues were you've left me in reception. That's so good. And did you were you flustered or did you go okay? I think it made for a better interview. I was um I was so relaxed. I was just like, okay, we're going. I haven't had time to think about it. It was great.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Yeah, it was fun. No time to get nervous. I must say, I was whisked in pretty quickly and out of the breakfast sofa too. There's definitely nowhere near enough time to actually get nervous about it. Before you know what's happening, the cameras are rolling and you're saying the word smelly and mucky just over and over again, and you're not quite sure what you're doing. That was my experience of it anyway.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Additions and corrections. Last week we talked about glass DRS in Wales and the fact that basically Wales are introducing glass in their DRS when the rest of the home nations aren't. So England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland aren't including glass. And there was a question about how that would happen and the fact that glass wouldn't have a deposit attracted for I think it was the first four years, if I remember rightly. I noticed a post on LinkedIn from Paul Pearcy, and he's from British Glass, and he was asking some really interesting questions that I hadn't thought about, that it sounds like are quite unresolved. So I thought it was just worth highlighting a couple of unintended consequences of including glass and DRS. And I guess the first one is one of my criticisms of DRS. So this is a deposit return scheme where we're going to have a deposit applied to our drinks, and then you get the deposit back when you bring it back. It's always the unredeemed deposits that help to fund it. So there's a lot of expense up front, but then you're hoping not everyone's going to bring their bottles back, and then whatever isn't claimed is what helps fund it. And so I think it was Ireland, wasn't it, in the first year of launching their scheme, they've got over 60 million euros unredeemed, which is just a huge amount of deposits just sat there not being claimed. And it means that you're not really driven to have a high collection rate, because of course you want more and more unredeemed deposits. But Paul was pointing out if glass has the cost of the reverse vending machines and the cost of a system and it's included in the system, but no deposit, then that's going to make the system a lot more expensive because there's going to be no unredeemed deposits for glass.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Yeah, no, it's going to be a tricky thing to balance, and ultimately the governments are going to have to work together and come out and say how they're going to resolve the issue to ensure that it isn't a double cost.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Yeah, and then there's another double cost, of course, with EPR, because in England, glass is in EPR but not DRS. So in England we say if you're in the DRS scheme, you don't have costs within EPR. Now that's really easy if you're doing that as a whole, you know, if every nation is doing that. So if England, Wales, Scotland are all doing the same thing, then it's really easy to go, your EPR, your DRS. But with Wales now, what the glass industry will argue is well, we don't want to pay an EPR bill because we're now in DRS. But how do you work out which bit of your EPR bill is just linked to Wales? So you're gonna have to suddenly track all your transactions in Wales, work out the weight of that material. It's just opening this can of worms that I'm not sure I'd really thought through when we talked about it last week.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Yeah, it's gonna be tricky to get the two things separated. There is also nation of sale reporting that's supposed to be coming in from next year. However, I'm not sure that's going to be the silver bullet that helps resolve this what got sold in Wales, and how do you make sure you take that off your EPR bill? But definitely more to come on that issue. And I've got an addition on corks. This one was a rubbish or not way back in episode three, so the recycling of corks. And I'll be honest with you, I was interacting with someone on LinkedIn about this, and someone privately messaged me and said, Robbie, you do know you've done a podcast on recycling corks, don't you? To which I realised I had totally forgotten.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

So I went back and listened to it. Can I just say no one needs talking rubbish recycle content more than Robbie?

SPEAKER_00 7:03

This breakdown of all our clips is going to be so useful for you. It really is. Yeah, it's gonna help me remember the things that I've already said and that are out there. Anyway, we advised that these natural corks, you can chop them up, you can use them as mulch. There's a scheme called Re-Cork that we talked about, where if you've got like commercial quantities, you're a bar or something, you can get them collected. Well, there has been a new scheme launched by Majestic Wines. So they're a uh retailer of fine wines in the UK here. They've launched a takeback scheme. Apparently, it's in all of their stores, and you can go and deposit your corks. Why do I care so much about this? Well, I'm hoping to move house soon, and I've got a huge bag of corks, which perhaps tells me something about my wine consumption habits, maybe. I was hoping to use them for a craft project, like a cork pin board. Um, I'm sure you've seen those kinds of things before. But this is the kind of thing I really don't want to be moving house with a bag of old corks. So I think I'm gonna have to scrap the craft project ideas and head over to Majestic Wines and recycle these corks.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

Of course, it's a vicious cycle because when you're in Majestic, you'll be like, oh, we need some more wine. And then you'll end up with more corks.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

It's just Majestic wine know what they're doing.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

We'd like to take a moment to thank our sponsor, EcoSurety, who are on a mission to rid the world of unnecessary packaging. They help brands navigate the tricky world of extended produce responsibility, but that is not all. They also collaborate on some incredible recycling projects and consumer awareness campaigns for those tough to recycle materials. If you're an organization looking to make smarter packaging choices, check them out at ecosurity.com. And the best thing you can do to help our podcaster grow is to tell your friends and family about it. You can also leave us a review, and if you do that, you could be Robbie's review of the week.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

And this one's yet another five-star review from Plastic Lucy. And the title is A Brilliant Deep Dive into the Depths of Recycling and How We Live Today. Talking Rubbish has become my new fave podcast. So much so that my eight-year-old daughter complains loudly when she gets in the car and finds it on yet again. Admittedly, I am biased. Hi, Robbie and James. But honestly, there is so much I'm learning each week that I never knew I wanted to know. The complexities of making purchasing decisions based around environmental health and also human health are vast and really hard to unravel as a consumer. So I appreciate that the format allows for examination of the minutiae as well as the big pictures. Guys, keep up the good fight for your growing band of influencers.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

It's very good. Thank you so much, Lucy, who we think we know. Seeing as she said hi, James and Robbie. We know a couple of Lucy's though. I'm pretty sure we know who this is. So thank you so much for that review. And you can follow us at rubbishpodcast. You can email talkingrubbishpodcast at gmail.com, or you can WhatsApp us. Also join our Discord. It's the easiest way to engage with us and listeners of the show. And the link to all of those things is in the show notes. Every five episodes we get the opportunity to interview someone involved in the recycling industry, and our guest this week is Ashley, the UK's number one bin man. Hi, Ashley. How's it going? Yes, very good. Thank you. Is it fair to say you are the most famous bin person in the UK?

SPEAKER_02 10:29

Well, I do like occasionally Google uh bin man TikTok, and I do come up quite a lot, so I'm gonna say probably yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

Oh, that's good. We do the same with Recycling Podcast, we just have to check that I have to go incognito just so it doesn't remember who I am and just check that Recycling Podcast is in the top top listings.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

But James, you're an empirical data man, so surely you must know the key statistics that make Ashley the number one bin man.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Uh it is a case of having the TikTok handle number one bin man. Just to get in first, that's what you gotta do. So for binfluencers not familiar, Ashley is a very, very viral refuse operative who uh has 20,000 followers on Instagram and over 150,000 on TikTok. Robbie, numbers we can only dream of. Absolutely. Wow, a serious BIMFluencer. A serious BIMFluencer. And we actually had that yesterday because as we were saying in our intro, we've just come off the back of a day of BBC interviews. And uh one of our influencers texted me saying, Radio 5 Live had just said they've got the number one BIMFluencer on the show. Which one of you is it? I said it's neither of us, and I thought, who is this guy? So I listened in, realised it was Ashley, and thought, by complete coincidence, we've got him on the show tomorrow.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

That was I wasn't expecting it. I got told about that in the morning, so it was just uh it was a shock to me as well.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

Oh, really? The radio the Radio 5 one.

SPEAKER_02 11:57

Yeah, I literally was planned to do obviously the local radio stations, uh, but I ended up doing the the five live one as well.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

So as I said, just to give a bit of background, you make videos on TikTok all about recycling. Just to give Binfluencers a flavour, one of your top videos with 2.4 million views is you removing polystyrene from the recycling bin. And I've got to try really hard not to sing the lyrics here because that is my natural style. So um, you removing polystyrene from the recycling bin to the tune of Rihanna's Take A Bow, the lyrics of which are don't tell me you're sorry because you're not. Well, I know you're only sorry you got caught. And I mean, that's a video with 2.4 million views, of which I reckon I'm at least a hundred of those views because it's quite addictive. It's quite addicted, and my wife hates it because it the song is in our head all the time at the moment.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

No, I've done obviously done that video as a while ago now. I think that's one of my older ones. I feel like I did that last year. Uh, but yeah, I do like to just make bin formation uh local, like two general songs and stuff. So it just obviously it people really uh relate to it more if it's obviously through a song than rather just talking information.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

You said bin formation before because it really looked like you just came up with that on the fly.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

Oh no, I said it, I said a couple days ago and I was like uh it's uh bin formation and binfo is my like little uh in the bin distribution. Obviously, I talk about a lot.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

God, it can be applied to so many things. I'm just gonna be thinking about them for the rest of the interview now.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Does the word start with IN? If it does, you've never been to it. Love it. Always posting to Binstagram. You're I'm on Bin Talk, obviously. Is there Bin Tok, yeah? You commented that the other day on my post because um yeah, what we talk about, our silent supporters, and you said welcome to Bin Talk, and then loads of loads of people commenting going, I want to be on Bin Talk. How do I get onto this? Yeah, absolutely. And I guess you know, some of your videos, let's just uh give a couple more examples. You've got someone putting a contaminated bin out to the tune of who do you think you are by the Spice Girls? You're chasing after the bin lorry with uh the rose from Titanic, you know, the bit where she's freezing and she's saying, Come back to the lifeboats. It's you chasing after the bin lorry. I guess my first question is how do you come up with your ideas? Because I think you post every day.

SPEAKER_02 14:21

Oh yeah, I've posted well, I posted every day for the last 16 months. I probably post like anywhere between three to about six videos a day. Uh I literally just recycle the general information and then just keep adding new songs or talking about different questions people ask me. Sorry, you said three to five videos a day. Yeah. Oh my goodness. I do I do have to uh so when I get a chance to make videos, I will save a load of comments for people to put on my posts and then try and do them in like one go. So it only takes me one minute, one second normally to do a video because it has to be over the minute long, and then that's it. I just make as many as I can, and then when I'm sitting in the cab when I'm driving, I just save for listening to like Spotify or something. I literally just save songs and go, oh, I can add that to a thin related information or something.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Amazing. And why why do you feel it's taken off recently? Because it sort of feels like you've had massive growth in the last couple of months, and obviously the media have started picking up on your advice that you're giving for your videos. What do you think has caused it to take off?

SPEAKER_02 15:29

It's obviously the the sim uh simpler recycling has obviously helped a lot because I feel like a lot of people trying to get information about it, and I just seem to come up at the same time as it. So that's good for me. Uh, but it's just yeah, mainly people having questions about it more than they've ever had it before because you realise a lot more people obviously have the postcode lottery of recycling, and people have completely different bins, which have some in my videos. I get people asking, Well, my bin's yet uh black bin for recycling or general waste, why are you putting it in the wrong bin? So it just kind of it gets a nice little uh storm of comments going on in the video.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

Okay, I was going to ask you about that because yeah, your Rihanna video is you removing polystyrene from the black bin and saying, Don't put it in here. And in my head, I'm thinking, the black bin's general, put it back in there. Where are you taking it? Yeah, mine's completely different. Yeah, so how do you deal with that? Do you get lots of comments saying, hang on a second, this is the wrong colour, or do people generally understand that you're just doing it from your your home setup?

SPEAKER_02 16:30

Yeah, well, I don't understand at all, to be honest, because everyone thinks that everyone's got the same coloured bin. Uh so I do now try and put on the screen, like even in the video he said, like taking it out of the recycling bin, and people still go, that's a general waste bin. I'm like, it's it's not to me. Nothing else I can do about it.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

Yeah, you'll have to print out just a recycling sign that you just stick on the bin so everyone knows this black bin is my recycling bin.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

I try it with the text on the screen, and then in that Rihanna video still says taking it out the recycling bin, but no matter what I try, it's I won't upset somebody uh who hasn't have the correct colour bin to what they perceive to be the recycling bin.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

So you're already starting to clear up one of the binfluencer's questions out there, which is that you are actually a bin man, aren't you?

SPEAKER_02 17:20

Yes, I am. Uh I've I started about 13 years ago. I started off as a loader and then did that for about seven years, and then I became a driver, driving for six years now. So I kind of still have to do both. I've been loading for the last two weeks because I'm more of the the younger side of the lot of the drivers, so I don't mind getting out and loading and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

So, what does your working day look like then? Uh like usually that surely starts quite early in the day, does it?

SPEAKER_02 17:50

Yeah, so I have to be at my yard for half past five, and then we get given our keys, if obviously the drivers uh we do our vehicle checks as normal, and then we pick the loaders up about quarter to six, and then our first things go on at six o'clock until we obviously finish our round.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

And just uh speaking of a round, because we had this BBC recycling day yesterday, I was watching the BBC uh Bristol reporter who'd gone out with Bristol waste, and I feel like they were confessing a bit too much. The operative, the driver, said, obviously, if you're too successful, they send you out on other on another round. So there was this discussion about how you want to collect the right amount of waste, you want to do it in the right time frame, so that when you get back to the depot, they say, Oh, you can finish for the day, as opposed to, oh, can you go and help someone else because you've come back so early? So is that something you have to think about? You have to think, okay, I when I get brought back to the depot, I might get sent back out again.

SPEAKER_02 18:46

Uh, it depends on the cut every company is completely different. So some people will have a job and finish, which would mean you get given a certain amount of jobs for the day, and then that's your complete day, or you'd have task and finish, which the task is to complete all the bins before you can go back. So that's like the group of yeah. So it obviously depends on which one it is. Uh, but yeah, so normally it's if you do finish early, just say a lot all the time at 11 o'clock a lot before your time, then you might be given more work because other people are not finishing to one o'clock and they feel like it's evening out. But I would prefer to ask to be switched round and rather go on their round to see if I can finish their round earlier before willing to take on more work.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

And is there competition then between the rounds for like so? If you, for example, you're done nice and early, you've quickly whizzed around your round, someone consistently, like another crew, is that what you would call the yeah, so another crew's whizzing around as fast as they can, but they're finishing hours and hours after you. Is there then a big debate about whose round is harder and which crew is better? Is that a common thing?

SPEAKER_02 20:00

It is well, a bit from the amount of time I've been doing it, like you hear exactly the same excuses and stuff uh for the whole time. As in you'd be like, if you finish early, you everyone else will say you've got an easy round. Um or if another one's like, no, I don't have an easy round, just make it look easy. That's my little uh the thing, it's it's you just being too slow. So it's like either it's an easy round, and like, no, you're just too slow on that round, so that's why we're finishing at different times. So that's why I'm like, oh, I'd rather go and swap round rather than uh then obviously get given more work. But every no beat man I've known would always go, yeah, I've got an easy round, give me more work. I've just I've never seen that happen.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Everyone claims it's difficult whether they finish early or late. Yeah, it's in your best interest to kind of show that it's pretty tough out there, which let's be honest, Ashley, it is pretty tough. It is not an easy job in terms of what you're expected to do because every refuse operative I've ever seen is going at the maximum pace in terms of how many bins they can get collected.

SPEAKER_02 21:07

Oh yes, and also you do you work a lot faster the later on you go into the week as well, because everyone wants to get done early on a Friday. So you'll see you'll see bin men working double hard on them on a Friday compared to a Monday. But uh, yeah, so it's just it's obviously you do a lot of work. People love to be like, oh, I could do that job when it's come into like the nicer weather. Everyone feels like they can be a bin man in the summer. It's lovely, you get a suntan, and when you come to the winter and it's snowing or cold outside, don't fancy that really.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

And in Bristol, where we're based, where you have curbside salt, we talked about that like all the way back on episode one. Um, how does how does the council you work for collect? I'm always fascinated by the different ways councils collect our rubbish.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

So the council, where I work and where I live, have completely different bin setups. So where I work, it's they have the plastic, uh, then have paper and Obviously, general waste, food waste. So that's been like that for over five years now. Uh, each each service. But where I live, we still haven't got food waste. Uh, we've only got general and in recycling, and that's that's all I have. So it's completely different. So when I'm talking about people, I can relate to both sides of people in the comments going, I don't do this, you don't have to do that. And it's like, well, it depends where you are.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

And so when you're picking up a food waste bin, are you thinking I could do this better if I had this at home? You get annoyed because you're seeing an egg show in the general bin thinking, this is so frustrating.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

Yeah, at home we have a we have a compost bin, so we do compost ourselves, so we don't actually have wouldn't have much food waste because obviously the only stuff that will go in there is obviously bones and meat and stuff. So the rest of the stuff we do compost anyway. But uh yeah, I I don't I'm not gonna say I'm looking forward to having a food waste caddy, but uh it's nice not to have one at the moment because the smell of some of them can be proper bad.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Oh, that's interesting, because we often say they don't smell, you know, if they're collected weekly and you're doing it properly, but presumably your council is collecting it weekly, the food waste. So you do experience that smell like in the summer or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

Oh, it's yes, and the main thing is obviously some people don't put uh the food waste in a bag. It's just loose in the in the bin. And it's like there's only so many times you can bang a bin to try and get out without breaking the bin. So you gotta wait up and like you you do it the best you can, but it is much easier if someone puts it in a paper bag or uh loose paper or a biodegradable bag, especially the co-op, they're they're the best bags. They terrible as carab carrier bags, but they're great for uh they're great for food waste.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

I completely agree. Like, why aren't people using bags? That's a great call out, guys. First bit of advice from number one bin man use a bag with your food waste. It's it's best for everyone.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

So you're mostly collecting wheelie bins then for rather than like boxes of recycling when you're on your own.

SPEAKER_02 24:02

So I mainly do a recycling round. So we collect a service of either paper one week, plastic the other, and food waste every week. So we have a split lorry, which is 70-30 split, so 30% food, 70% of the recycling material. And so, yeah, we have to push a wheelie bin with us to put the food waste in. So the smell obviously that stays in the the bin for hours if you get a proper smelly one.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

Oh, okay. So you're wheeling a bin around and emptying the food caddy into a wheelie bin, yeah, and then eventually, once that gets full, putting it into the tipper in the back of the truck.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

Yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

Yeah, and and presumably those bins that are smelling, it's because people aren't either using those carrier bags or they're just not washing their caddy out every week or whatever. So it could potentially it's not because it's a week's worth of food, it's potentially much longer because if they've put it in loose or it's spilled outside the bag inside the caddy, it's kind of in there and and it's just going to keep smelling for longer and longer.

SPEAKER_02 25:11

It also depends on if they do put it out every single week, because if you forget one week and then that's two weeks worth in the bin, and then obviously if they haven't bagged it up, bread's the worst. Bread, if you put it in there and you tip it into the bin, you get a nice cloud of mould come out of the bin. You're like, nah, at least tip this bin straight away, because it's it's not good.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

You've got to be doing a fair bit of walking then, haven't you, Shirley?

SPEAKER_02 25:38

Uh so obviously I did you try and record it on your fitness app. Uh, but when you're pushing a bin, it doesn't record as many steps as you do. Because if you do a pram and stuff, you're holding on to a thing, your your watch isn't moving, depending on the quality of your watch, obviously. So I'm not gonna be wearing wearing a 100-200 pound watch doing the bins, because obviously you're gonna be banging it around and stuff. But yeah, just trying to count steps, it misses loads of steps. So you could be like one day you could be doing it, and there's 18,000 steps, you think I thought I've walked more than that, and then the next week you obviously I'd have used the other hand more, and you end up doing 23,000 steps. You're like, where did all these extra steps come from? And it's exactly the same round, yeah, it's exactly the same. But obviously, you're either crossing the road more, you just like put it with your left hand and your your ri your fitness watches on your right hand and it counts more steps.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

It's just as simple as that, but you can never tell how much if you had to guess though, we're putting it around 20,000 steps, are we? That's what you're doing on on an average round, is it?

SPEAKER_02 26:40

I reckon if you're just doing like what you're doing during the your shift, it's probably around 22,000, I would say.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

Okay. Let's hope your employers aren't listening and thinking he should be doing 30,000.

SPEAKER_02 26:51

Obviously, most people want to obviously clock up 30,000. Obviously, you're gonna be walking before work and after work. So obviously, for the whole day, it would be a lot more. But if you're just taking your actual shift, you're probably doing about 22,000. Drivers are probably not nowhere near that, by the way. They're doing you're lucky to get over like three, four thousand out of some drivers.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

So do you prefer drive because you do both, don't you? Do you prefer driving or collecting the bins? Which is loading all day long.

SPEAKER_02 27:22

My driver. But you've got two reasons. Obviously, the fitness side of it, I I love the walking outside and all that, and also you haven't got to do the tip run. So you get to go home early compared to the driver. You haven't got to do the the checks or wash the lorry down or anything like that. You're just like, all right, see you later. I'm off now.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

Happy days. But a lot of your videos are filmed in a truck, so presumably you do those on driving days, because I'm guessing you film those back at the depot rather than on the round itself.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

Yes, all my all my uh videos are filmed after work, so obviously either you could tell if you see how long I've been like loading or driving for, because they'd be either all in the lorry and then I'll just do the ones at home occasionally. But when I'm uh finish early from work from loading, I just do loads at home in front of the bins and stuff, because it's the only time I can actually use like actual bins, because obviously we don't carry them around with us apart from the apart from the food waste ones and everyone's like, why is there not a lid on that bin? I was like, because if I'm loaded, I can't reopen the lid every single time to put the food in.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

So you're doing these videos to try and reduce confusion and misinformation. How much confusion do you think there is for the average resident, you know, as you're going around collecting these bins? Because you've got this luxurious position of doing these videos to try and educate people, but you're also seeing the other side of like what people are actually putting out in their waste. And I'm intrigued to know how different those two things are.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

Uh yeah, there's a lot of stuff which are completely should it be in the recycling bin at all. And you're like, like I don't understand how people think they should go in there. So we've got like nappies end up in the plastic bin, and you're like, where have you thought of this to put that in the right bin? Or obviously the main one obviously with the video you said about before, which is the polystyrene. There's I don't know many councils have actually told me or anything like that that they actually recycle polystyrene within their household bins. You obviously have to be taken away to somewhere else. But that sort of information is like people just think plastic plastic, isn't it? And then just put it in the bin.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

Yeah, I was actually just on the radio with I think it was BBC Worcester, and they were saying up to a fifth of their recycling is diverted to an incinerator partly because of nappies. It's it's very odd. To me, it's very odd that people think nappies are recyclable, but then you look at them, because obviously I've got a young son, so I'm looking at it going, why is this happening? And there's a symbols on there that are so confusing. So the green dot is one we've talked about before in a very early episode of Talking Rubbish, you know, the two arrows kind of they're green and they swell together, and everyone thinks it means recyclable, which it it doesn't, it doesn't mean anything in the UK. And um a lot of nappies now say words like biodegradable or the plastic is biodegradable. And again, people think, oh, that must mean I put it in my recycling bin. And that misinformation is is absolutely huge. Yeah, there's so many items.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

Obviously, we have a lot of like uh uh dog poo and stuff like that. That goes in the food waste bin. It's like no, it's not it's doesn't go in there. I know it's obviously people like oh, it's from food, it's like it's not the same, completely not the same, general waste being 100% of the time.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

And one of the things I'm always intrigued by is like on my street, if I I I like to think I'm the influencer on the street, but I it's fun watching people put their bins out at like midnight because I've suddenly remembered to do it and I go, oh god, I've just remembered to put my bins out, and I go to put them out and I realise no one else on the street has done it because I'm late. I'm intrigued to know whether you can tell who is responsible for the bins on the street.

SPEAKER_02 30:58

Uh obviously, we try and obviously tell people to put them out the night before, but obviously some people do do it last minute and stuff, and they just they have no idea which week is which. Obviously, look down the street, and occasionally you see uh one or two houses putting out the wrong bins with a completely different week, and you're like, well, they've obviously just copied each other rather than uh knowing which bins to put out, and then you just it's nice for us because we just record it as not out or wrong uh wrong bin out, and we can just walk have to walk past them. There's nothing we can do about it. Uh but yeah, this happens all the time that it's normally three or four houses in a row or across the road from each other, which have the wrong bin out. You're like, sorry, yeah. See you later, and you just carry on going.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

Okay, and so how do the like sort of complaints work? You know, you you you said you sort of log that it's the wrong bin or whatever. How does that do do the complaints come directly to you, or what happens if someone's bin's missed and either it's their fault or not, or whatever?

SPEAKER_02 31:56

So normally what happens is we log our bins in the uh during the day, so it'll be like the road names and then we'll just log house numbers and stuff like that. We'll show up, we have all the data which are like assisted collections where people we have to go up and get the bin from a certain position and bring them back. Uh and then obviously if they're not out, we recall down the system as uh bin not out, but there's also obviously other reasons we might not take the bin. So we've got like contaminated bin, overcompacted, frozen bins in the winter. Because obviously, if stuff gets frozen to the bottom of it, we can't empty them.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

So okay, so I have to ask, have you done a throat a frozen themed video? Is there a let it go video? I have I haven't done one yet.

SPEAKER_02 32:37

No. I'm remembering for next year. Oh if it freezes again, but I haven't done a frozen bin video yet. Yeah, we're in a bit of a warm spell at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

It feels like you'll it feels like it's gonna be next year.

SPEAKER_02 32:50

But yes, we have lots of things we recalled. Obviously, there's a lot of like damaged bins and stuff where we can't move the bin because the wheels are broken off it, so we can't either move it off. It is too heavy, all that stuff gets recorded on the device we have in the cab, and then when they ring up to the council to complain, that's a recalled from the information this is the reason why it wasn't collected. Unfortunately, we can't send pictures on our ones where of the picture of the bin why we didn't take it, because it's like contaminated for this reason, but it'll just say contaminated bin, that's the reason why we didn't take it.

SPEAKER_01 33:23

But take that broken wheel example, when you log it, it doesn't then order them a new bin automatically, they have to ring up or put it online.

SPEAKER_02 33:30

I'm guessing when they ring up the cancelled to say why I didn't get collected, it'd be like damaged bin, and then hopefully they'd be like, right, can order a new one, and then they're obviously on the onto the right people.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

It's still a pretty clever system though, isn't it? That you actually are are I don't think people would realise that if there's they're not getting their bin picked up, that kind of gets logged, and it's not just uh sort of he said, she said type scenario. It's like, no, no, we were there, we saw your bin, it had the wrong stuff in it, or it was overcompacted and we couldn't get stuff out, or it was the plastic week and you put paper in the thing.

SPEAKER_02 34:04

The best one I like to we put down as well. Uh it happens occasionally, not all the time, uh, is refilled after collection. We've seen it so many times where we've walked down the road and you see them just like filling the bin back up, and you're like, we just saw you do it, and then we mark on the system as refilled after collection. So very naughty.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

Oh, that's amazing. I'm trying to understand what the gain is here. So you've collected it, they then refill it, what, and run it down the street, be up past it.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

No, so that in other words, they would so we would just collect it, and obviously we wouldn't mark it down as anything. So if they ring up, we wouldn't have marked it down as not out because we would have collected the bin. But if we like leave the side waste, because obviously what like general waste should be all in the bin, uh, they would be like, Well, you didn't collect my bin. We're like, no, we saw you refill it after we left, and then we recall it so they're not gonna go back and get your second bin because you wanted more rubber to be collected.

SPEAKER_00 35:00

Oh, so they're sort of like they've got an extra black bag that's next to it that you haven't taken because they're not supposed to be putting that out, and they just quickly dump that into the bin and try pretend it was there all along. That's very naughty.

SPEAKER_01 35:15

And I get that I mean it is an interesting point, isn't it? Because I think lots of people, particularly on social media, I'm sure you get this all the time, would say, Well, why don't you take that? You're there anyway. Why wouldn't you take the bag to the side of the bin? And I guess I I'm interested in that kind of self uh people's view that hey, I should be allowed to do something different, but then obviously if everyone did it, you'd just be collect you wouldn't be able to collect.

SPEAKER_02 35:38

Yeah, you wouldn't be able to collect the end of the run. So they try and give us enough work to fill up the lorry so many times, so obviously they then base it on every house having so much weight which would fit in up to their capacity of a full bin. That's why we don't take overfilled bins, obviously one it's overfilled, two, we tip the bin and then the lid comes off because it gets stuck on the lorry coming down, and three, obviously, when we move it, everything falls out everywhere. So we don't take certain things, everyone's allowed that one bin, lid closed, and then hopefully that means all the rounds should be similar weights because you're not taking the extra weight, extra waste. Most cancels allow you to do more recycling bins if you want if you request them, but general waste they obviously they make you pay for because obviously you're it's more expensive to take away, I'm guessing.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

Yeah, and they're trying to ultimately limit the amount of general waste and get people recycling, presumably. So it sounds like if you're doing the loading and the driving, how long have you been on the bin rounds then? How long have you been doing this?

SPEAKER_02 36:40

So yeah, it's been uh 13 years in total. Uh so yeah, I said said about seven years worth of loading and six of driving, but I still do both at the at at the moment. So it's just uh it's been a while, it's been a while.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

Yeah, uh we talked like quite a few episodes back, but earlier in the year, about the Birmingham bin strike and the various roles um that they're they're looking to sort of make redundant and and there's been strikes. They haven't had waste picked up or recycling picked up from people's homes for over a year now. Is that the kind of issue that would affect you? It sounds like you've had some career progression from the loading to the driving.

SPEAKER_02 37:19

Uh yeah, so at our place we don't have, I believe in Berlin there have grades with the levels of bin men. We just kind of have one which is just uh bin men and then driver loaders. So you can obviously within the role develop. So I did it through my work. Uh I took my driving through them and they paid for it, and then I became a driver loader. But that's our only development we have within our roles.

SPEAKER_01 37:43

And you mentioned you're one of the youngest drivers, I think you said. Is that right?

SPEAKER_02 37:47

Yeah, I guess. There's uh obviously some people are on the old uh grand is it grandfather licenses still, where they obviously they didn't have to take HDV license, it was from their car license and stuff. Oh, when they're like the older some of the older boys.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

Okay, and I guess that was going to be my question about the workforce. Are you finding uh that it is getting older? I met with Bristol Waste recently and they said one of the problems they were having was getting younger people into the career. They were, you know, it was an aging workforce, and it's quite hard to get young people to apply for this job. And so I'm intrigued as to what you're experiencing.

SPEAKER_02 38:22

Most people who come into the job have the same as me, have lost their jobs from other previous jobs, and it's kind of like uh joining an agency and then coming into it. You don't get many school leavers or people some people come back from university and stuff and do it for a short amount of time, but it would mainly be people who have fallen out of jobs to then just looking for something because of stock gap.

SPEAKER_01 38:47

Okay, and then you end up loving it and doing it for Yeah, yeah, something we love to stay in. I love walking. I try and do 20,000 steps a day at the moment. Big fan of just getting walking, and for me, I love being outside, but I am a fair weather. I'm not a fair weather walker, but I am a fair weather worker. And you are right. I I am exactly the kind of person who'd be like, oh, this is a great job in the summer.

SPEAKER_02 39:09

But again, obviously you got more smells in the summer, you you sweat a lot more in the summer, uh and obviously when you it sounds quick, everything seems a bit more gross in the summer because you're wearing less clothes. Uh, every like in the winter, things are frozen, so you don't really get smells or the ping juice or anything like that. Doesn't really notice it as much. But in the summer, uh the flies are everywhere. Uh, you've got more maggots and stuff like that. You it's not as glamorous in the summer as it is the winter sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

Okay, so we've made it sound horrendous. So I will just do a bit of a plug. I'll do a bit of a plug for young people to wanting to get into their career.

SPEAKER_02 39:49

I've I did it just obviously when I first started, I my fitness and stuff has been another level. So I do I've done about four marathons in the London Marathon twice, Brighton marathon and the local one. I've done ultra marathons and stuff, and I I haven't needed to do as much fitness work as some people are training for marathons to do. I play football the weekends, I'm normally one of the fittest on the pitch. Like, and it's just from going to work and getting paid. Like, it's nothing like majorly to it. I do like to go to the gym occasionally in the mornings before work, but before work? Yeah, because after work I'm a bit tired, I'm not gonna lie to you.

SPEAKER_00 40:29

But what time do you start your own? What time are you in the gym then?

SPEAKER_02 40:32

So I I go to the gym at four and then finish there at five and then to the bins for half five.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

Wow, okay, you're sounding more machine than man at this point.

SPEAKER_02 40:44

But yeah, so like fitness-wise and stuff like that, it's for a younger person, I believe it's it is a lot easier, obviously, to do. Uh, because you just naturally you can you can do a fast pace for five, six hours, and you kind of can be done for the day, and then you've got the rest of the day to yourself, where some jobs you are most jobs you are working nine to five. There's no like oh I'll get to finish early. It's you don't get that, and with that, and I don't work weekends, and I to me that's a that's a massive bonus.

SPEAKER_01 41:19

And no, and do you think a focus on social media will help young people to be more aware of the job, more aware that it exists, which is obviously the most important thing in getting people to apply.

SPEAKER_02 41:30

Oh, yeah, obviously, you just uh some people in my social media comments think we work one day a week. So it's a debug of that. That's not true either. We we definitely work Monday to Friday. Some of them work four days a week, definitely not one, though. So you don't just do one day every three weeks.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

Because they only yeah, so my big days are Thursday. Some people on my street might think refuse operatives only work on a Thursday.

SPEAKER_02 41:55

That's something they're the rest of the time off. But we don't. They do have to work four to five days a week, depending on the counts.

SPEAKER_00 42:03

Okay, so it's a good job, but not so good that it's once a week.

SPEAKER_01 42:06

Yeah, it's not that great, but it is still good for uh a normal job. I mean, that is such an interesting point, isn't it? Because it is, I mean, a great summary of that is recycling is just something we all have to engage with every week. You know, we have to think about what we're putting out in our bins. But how often do we think about the collection crew? How often are we thinking, where's this gone? We're just it we are unless we're complaining about it because people do love to say, oh, they mixed it in the truck, you know, they didn't really recycle it, all that stuff. That's always said. But essentially I put a bin out in the evening and in the morning I've got empty bins and I go, Oh, that's lovely. And I bring them in, and I don't think, God, some people had to get up at 5 a.m. to make that happen. And you know, I've got this amazing crew who I don't even know. And it's just super interesting that people could be so focused that they don't even think, oh my goodness, these people work every day of the week.

SPEAKER_02 42:57

Yeah, so like some of my cops, obviously, in my comment section, there's obviously questions about the bin men and stuff because not many people know they're bin men. Like people say, Oh, you're such a happy bin man. I'm like, You probably don't even never met your bin men to know if they're they're nice or miserable or whatever they are. Uh, but obviously we get a lot of things like our bin men, uh, grumpy, they move my bin 20 miles down the road. You're like, that seems like a lot of effort for a bin man. I don't feel like they're they're going that far to uh to put you out of place.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

Yeah, they're not deliberately trying to make life hard for you. It's probably because the way you're putting your bin out is making life hard for them.

SPEAKER_02 43:35

Yes, so our biggest problem, obviously, putting the bin or collecting the bins is uh people's parking like in closes or people park on corners and stuff like that, and we just can't get down roads, and then obviously we have to park at some point, go collect the bins and bring them to the lorry. And most bins look the same. I'm not gonna lie to you. They've got a couple of them which have numbers on them, which is great, which I would always suggest people putting it on their lead. And stuff because that's the best place to uh to put your bin number.

SPEAKER_03 44:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 44:05

But uh also you've got some people who put like pictures like of dogs or butterflies, and you're like, I don't know where that where how where that bin belongs to. Yes, you might you might recognise your bin, but that means nothing to me.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

And do you find the public I mean I live in the butterfly house is like an amazing, amazing thing that you have to work out which one's the butterfly house. But do you find people are very possessive of their bins then? Is the number putting the number on the bin is your top tip?

SPEAKER_02 44:34

Oh yeah, 100%. Because you obviously some people are like, oh, it's just a bin, and that's absolutely fine, but they're normally the the dirtiest bins, the people who don't care about their bins, what bin they get back. Uh and obviously what I say with the food waste bins as well, because if people do leave it loose in their bins and then they magically a a fresh new bin arrives around their property, they're like, Well, I'm taking that one because that's a lot that's a lot nicer. But if it's got no bin number, you're never gonna know which one's yours. So that's why I would always just if you look after your bins, make sure you put a number on the lids. Because for me, when I'm carrying two or three bins at a time, you have two in one hand and you can always see the lid, so you can tell which number it is before you even walk to it. So you're not walking past houses and stuff like that. Put the bin down and you carry on walking to the next one. So if you are very precious about your bin, definitely put a number on it.

SPEAKER_01 45:25

It's funny you should say this because a green bin mysteriously appeared on our street the other day and it appeared outside my house. And green for us is like plastic and metal. And I love a free bin. I'm always keen. I didn't order it, and I just thought, what's this bin doing here? And uh I put it ne I thought, well, it's not mine, so I gave it to my neighbour. I put it in my neighbour's driveway, and it obviously wasn't theirs, and I watched this bin get shuffled around the street, you know, all the way along, then all the way down the other side, then all the way along again, straight back to my house, where I thought, right, I'm keeping it then. And as I've said on this podcast in our very earlier episodes, my mother-in-law likes to bring me plastic, so this is now my mother-in-law's bin. And when she turned up the other day, she filled it with plastic, and I thought, this is great, I'm glad I've got this bonus bin.

SPEAKER_02 46:16

You have to put a separate number on it, just make a number up and put it in your road and be like, oh, that's not mine.

SPEAKER_01 46:21

Just take it. I don't wish to open the can of worms. What symbol would my mother-in-law have?

SPEAKER_00 46:30

Don't go there, James. Don't go there, James. So, in terms of advice, then you've put said, you know, numbers on the top so that you can match it up and see that people get their bins back if you're really particularly precious about your bin. What other bits of advice have you got that we can do as people who put our bins out every week, recycling or otherwise, to make your life and your colleagues' life easier?

SPEAKER_02 46:56

So the main thing is I feel like putting bins next to each other. So if you're doing like a semi-dached street, if you have a gap between the houses, that's where you want to kind of put your bins, so it's not blocking a driveway, and it's easier for the bin men just to grab we normally grab two bins at a time to the back of the lorry, we load up and then put them back exactly the same place. If you don't, you're like dotted around, it's either walking a bin all the way to the next bin to collect, tipping them on the lorry and having to walk all the way back again, and hopefully if there is a number on them, you get the same bin back. Otherwise, hopefully you couldn't get any bin. Uh, but yes, it's just that's a massive thing. Like you've extra steps. I've seen people go, oh, it's only like 10 steps. But if you're we're tipping about uh 1,400 bins a day, like that's that's a lot of extra steps that we didn't really need to do. And obviously, all we want to try and do is get the bins on and off out of the way the quickest possible because people don't like waiting for the bin men to finish their job, they just expect us to be a hundred of miles an hour unless we're doing their bin and they want to take our time about it and then load it nice and slowly.

SPEAKER_01 48:05

Yeah, I put the handle out thinking that's going to be really helpful for them, and they'll really be pleased with me. Do you notice things like that or does it not matter?

SPEAKER_02 48:13

No, no, not really. It's obviously more helpful, obviously, than if it's pushed against the wall or something, because obviously you're sliding it out. But if it's on the side, it it's exactly the same as if it's facing the road, it doesn't make too much of a difference. I've never I've never gone, yes, that bends in the right place. That's gonna be a hard habit to break, but uh it's not making anything bad, is this? I would never be like, oh, that's that's my favourite house.

SPEAKER_00 48:49

Sorry, James. That hasn't you've got to do something else to become the favourite house. I'm such a people pleaser as well. I've there I am thinking I'm definitely the favourite house. That's amazing. But actually, what about other tips for like the what you put in the bin itself? Obviously, get the stuff right, but like how you put it in the bin, what helps you with the kind of knowing whether it is genuinely recycling in the bin and all that kind of stuff?

SPEAKER_02 49:16

Recycling properly. So we've got obviously making sure everything's loose inside the bins and there's nothing as in like plastic bags don't need to go in your plastic bins. So in other words, that should all be loose because most I haven't found accounts apart from the ones who do bin bag collections, that if they have a wheelie bin, everything should be loose within that bin anyway. So if we see a black bag or any sort of bag in it, we get told just to leave it because it's most likely to be general waste and will just get taken out anyway. So we get told to leave it. If it does end up in the truck, because he's it buried at the bottom of it, it'll just get thrown away in the general waste or taken out. Uh the first thing they do is take out any black bags because they're not going to sort through black bags to find out if it's got the right stuff in it, it's easier just to kind of get rid of it.

SPEAKER_00 50:08

So if you've got mixed recycling, there's no point bagging up the cans separately to the bottles, the glass bottles or plastic bottles, or bagging up the paper separately to the cans or whatever. There's no point in any of those bags. If you're supposed to put it in loose, you you just it being loose and tipped into the back of the truck is how you want it.

SPEAKER_02 50:30

The only thing with bagging it up, you could do it with paper if you're putting it in a paper bag. So that's the only thing I could say with that. Uh, but plastic-wise, no, just they're more likely to think it's general waste and not get recycled anyway. So the best thing is always just put it in there loose and it's more likely to then be recycled. As long as stuff's clean and everything's in the right bin. Obviously, I say about pizza boxes and stuff like that. Uh, make sure you get a rid of get rid of the greasy side of it because that side's not recyclable, you can't wash cardboard yet, so it'll just end up having to go your general waste. So as long as it's clean and as you bought it, it goes in the the paper bin, and then plastic can obviously be cleaned out.

SPEAKER_01 51:17

And when you're offering this kind of advice, I guess you have the same problem we have, which is we're talking to well, we're actually talking to 168 countries right now. Um, but in the UK, we're talking to the whole country, and uh people's rules differ, council rules differ. I literally have just posted a video about toothpaste tubes, and I've already had someone comment going, my council doesn't accept toothpaste tubes, and obviously the video is like, hey, recycle your toothpaste tubes. So it's very difficult to give this kind of national or uh to have a national platform where you give recycling advice when everyone's rules are so different. How do you counter that? How do you have to think about the content you're putting out when it's specific advice to councils?

SPEAKER_02 51:58

Most very rarely it's like a specific council I talk about. So it would normally be I would just either Google it to start with and then find out whatever local uh council is, an A to Z list of an item, and I'd be like, polystyrene's not allowed in this bin, and then someone can someone will go, Well, my council accepts it. And I was like, Oh, really? What cancel's that? And then I would literally go on their website and then screenshot the polystyrene and go, actually, I think you're wrong here. It should be going in the general waste bin. And it's just I normally do have to say, make sure you check with your local council before uh most of them do have really good A to Z uh lists of recycling where stuff goes. So I was double check there. But I do like to ask, what council is it? Because it it's another video I can make about oh, you should always check, and this is the reason why.

SPEAKER_01 52:53

I really feel like we should have put that in our intro, Robbie. It should have been like, hello, welcome to Talking Rubbish. Please make sure you check your local council before you listen to any advice from James and Robbie.

SPEAKER_00 53:03

We need that disclaimer up front. Yeah, that would have really helped us out. So we've talked a little bit over the various episodes about fires and the damage that they can cause and just you know, safety concerns. Is that something you see becoming more prevalent? Uh and you know, what do you do about the issue of kind of fires? Is it something you've had first hand experience of?

SPEAKER_02 53:28

So, with that, obviously, it's mainly batteries and vapes are the worst uh things for obviously starting fires in the back of the lorries. We've had one where uh we believe it was a vape went off in the in the back of the lorry, and there was like a small fireball to come up. And then obviously we have to see lucky enough, we were collecting plastic at the time. I mean, we don't have mixed recycling, because if it was paper within the lorry, then it would have been a completely different scenario. But yeah, so the the thing comes up, we have to make obviously we used a fire signal shelf to make sure we put it out. We then called our there was no more fire we could see, called our supervisor out, they checked, said yeah, there's nothing we can see. That to then take us to the tip and we have to tip it separately to make sure it's all out the lorry in case there was a fire at some point. But obviously, if they're set on fire, then obviously we have to call the fire brigade and everything like that, and they cut the lorries open. And obviously, it's only the the council are gonna end up paying for the repair. So technically it's just that's why cancel tax would go up because they can't replace these lorries.

SPEAKER_00 54:29

Yeah, crazy and actually amazing to see that this is a real problem. This is a real person who's seen one of these fireballs caused by one of these vapes. So people need to remember to keep them separate and if they're disposing of them, take them to their local supermarket where these uh bins are starting to uh to pop up and not put it in your recycling or your general wastebins.

SPEAKER_01 54:53

Ashley, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been it's been amazing to get your insight, and I'm sure BIMFluencers have learnt a huge amount in terms of just the practical process of having our waste collected. It's it's awesome to hear that just firsthand. Uh we like to, when we have a guest on, we like to ask them to recommend a gift for a BIMFluencer that I then go out and source. So, do you have a gift that you would like to recommend that we give away?

SPEAKER_02 55:18

Uh I would say butterfly stickers, but I'm gonna stick with uh the numbers on the bin. I feel like that would be a better one just uh to make it easier for me, not not just for the the houses. So, yeah, I would say bin stickers, uh as long as they agree to put them on the lid, then I'm I'm more than happy with that one.

SPEAKER_01 55:36

Okay, that's a very good suggestion. So I will source some exclusive bin stickers, which may or may not be exclusive. I will source some very, very nice bin stickers for whoever wins this prize. So to win this, just follow us on Instagram and like the post that is Ashley's episode announcement, and then I will enter you into a drawer for those bin stickers. Obviously, I will find out your address before I send them. I won't just send you a random number, I will make sure it matches your house number. But uh, you have to promise to put them on the lid of all of your bins. And Ashley, the question we ask every guest is if you had an environmental superpower, what would it be and how would you use it?

SPEAKER_02 56:19

So, yeah, my my superpower would be to be able to uh no X-ray vision to be able to see through the bins so I can tell if it's contaminated before I even get to it. So without even having to open the lid up, I could just see, yep, that's got black bags in it, and then I can just carry on walking. Uh and obviously for me, it'll make my day a lot easier, and obviously it'll stop my loaves from getting contaminated. So for me, X-ray vision through bins would be number one.

SPEAKER_00 56:46

That's brilliant. And you definitely spot those vapes, wouldn't you? So no more fireballs because you just wouldn't take the bin.

unknown 56:53

Probably.

SPEAKER_01 56:53

Or we need councils to adopt C3 bins. I mean, this could it's easier than getting X-ray vision.

SPEAKER_02 56:59

I I feel like they'll just get they will get done. If you don't keep them clean, then it's just gonna be back even worse to look at.

SPEAKER_00 57:07

You'd definitely know which of your neighbours kept their bins clean then, wouldn't you?

SPEAKER_01 57:13

Imagine that unbagged food waste in the summer just in that seafood. Not opening them out. I can see the maggots. Oh, anyway. Thank you so much, Ashley, for joining us. It really has been awesome to have you on, and hopefully everyone's enjoyed that. Uh, next week we're gonna do something a little bit different. Normally, Robbie and I take a while to edit and produce this podcast. So normally we're running a bit ahead of schedule. Uh, so we're we're recording a couple of weeks before things go out. But Netflix are releasing a documentary called Plastic Detox, and we wanted to give you guys almost live feedback of that. So Robbie and I are gonna have a little watch party of the uh of the documentary, and then we're gonna record our thoughts almost straight after so that that can go out as a trash talk. So next week we will give you a review of that documentary. I think it comes out on the Monday, and obviously our episode will come out on the Thursday. So if you guys wanted to, feel free to watch plastic detox on Netflix before the episode, and then we can all have a discussion about whether it was a good representation of the plastic industry, the issues with plastic. I think it's going to strike up the conversation again. So we just wanted to get our thoughts down quite quickly after it going out. As always, thank you all for listening. Thank you for the reviews and engagement. We absolutely love getting the opportunity to do this podcast. Join our Discord, follow us on social media at rubbishpodcast. You can email talkingrubbishpodcast at gmail.com or you can WhatsApp us. And everything we've discussed today can also be found on our link tree. The details of all those things can be found in our show notes. There's nothing left for me to say other than see you next bin day. Bye. Bye. Bye.