Household Waste Recycling Centre Staff

Household Waste Recycling Centre Staff

Most people call it “the tip”, but its proper name is the Household Waste Recycling Centre (HWRC). There are 19 across Devon, while Plymouth and Torbay Councils operate their own sites.

In Devon the HWRCs are operated by a company called Suez, but are overseen by Devon County Council. In other counties this may work differently, some HWRCs are run by charities or by the councils themselves.

Job skills required:

• An ability to deal with the public – the HWRC is a public facing service, which means good customer relations are key to this job.
• A good state of physical fitness – this job might require you to help the public with their waste, particularly if the member of the public is vulnerable, elderly or disabled.
• An ability to work as part of a team – good teamwork is needed to get the job done.
• A strong constitution – there’s no getting away from the fact that rubbish can be smelly! You can’t go round all day holding your nose!
• An ability to follow rules – health and safety is really important in this job. You don’t want to be the person who cuts their hand on a broken bottle because you haven’t put it in the right place. It’s also important to know what rules affect the rubbish that people bring into the tip, so you can make sure they are following the rules.
• An ability to drive an excavator or operate other machinery – if you’ve been on a school trip to our Recycling Centre at Pinbrook (read more here) then you will know that our HWRC operatives drive diggers around the site to squash down rubbish in skips.