Residents and children praise bin crews with surprise messages

While the vast majority of people are isolated in their households, key workers across the UK are on the frontline continuing to deliver for the nation. Along with countless professionals in the emergency services, health, social care and other vital sectors, the list of essential workers also includes waste management.

Waste and recycling crews such as drivers and collectors are still out on our streets across Harborough district, carrying out their crucial work to help support our communities, ensuring our quality of life remains as high as possible, and doing their part to protect public health.

Cleaning up the streets and neighbourhoods of Harborough district is one such crew from FCC Environment, the UK’s leading waste and resource management company. Over the last few weeks, the team has been receiving warm handwritten notes and drawings as residents thanked them and wished them good health.

A series of kind gestures from the Harborough community was furthered by local charity, HAB-Antibulling (HAB), a charity working with adults and children affected by bullying. The charity usually operates an annual raffle of Easter eggs – an event that did not go ahead this year due to COVID-19.

Instead, the charity kindly donated the eggs to FCC Environment employees to thank them for their continued service throughout the COVID-19 crisis. In return, FCC Environment is planning to run a virtual raffle with employees, with all proceeds being donated to HAB.

FCC Environment’s Contract Manager, John Whitup said: “We were overjoyed to receive such encouraging and warm messages and donations from the community, from children to charity workers. The COVID-19 crisis has really highlighted the strong community spirit and we are delighted to be part of it by delivering continued services and giving back to the community.

I am immensely proud of the FCC Environment team and the wider waste and resource management industry for doing our very best to continue our day-to-day duties during these extremely challenging times.”

He added: “We also want to take this opportunity to reassure the public that FCC Environment is working hard to ensure that household waste is collected in a timely manner as well as urging them to continue to reduce, reuse and recycle as much as of their waste as possible.”

Cllr Jonathan Bateman (pictured), Harborough District Council’s Cabinet lead for environmental services, said: “Our crews are doing a fantastic job and going above-and-beyond at this very challenging time. I know the overwhelming positivity from the community is providing a welcome boost for the crews who are working hard to support our communities during this pandemic.”

About 107,000 people in the waste and resource management industry have been identified by the Government as key workers, among them are about 96 people from FCC Environment working on behalf of Harborough District Council.

Household recycling and waste collections are operating as normal in the Harborough area. Following Government advice, to protect workers and combat the spread of infection, anyone who feels ill at home (whether diagnosed with COVID-19 or not) should place all their waste in the general rubbish bin, and should double-bag it, making sure the bags are securely tied. They should then wait at least 72 hours before placing it out for collection. For now, this material should not be put in your recycling.

 

Notes to Editors

FCC Environment

FCC Environment is one of the UK’s leading recycling and waste management companies, providing a range of services, from collecting business and municipal waste to recycling and processing, and the generation of green energy from waste.

Our approach is to minimise the amount of waste that ends up in landfill by transforming it into valuable resources wherever possible, helping local authorities and businesses deal with their waste as efficiently as possible while meeting all statutory and regulatory requirements.

We employ more than 55,000 people worldwide and nearly 2,400 people across the UK to operate a wide range of waste management sites developed to meet the needs of our customers. At FCC Environment, we recycle 1.6m tonnes of waste and generate more than 117MW of green energy each year.

Our five core services:

• Business waste solutions
• Municipal services
• Recycling
• Green energy
• Waste processing

 

To find out more about FCC Environment please visit www.fccenvironment.co.uk

 

Contact:

Yerin Seo

yerin.seo@becg.com 

T: 0203 219 7941