Aren't the Soprano's into the whole "waste management" thing

At the risk of dragging this one up again, Dagenham is not in Essex. Hasn't been since 1963. The border of Essex stops pretty much where the M25 is. Dagenham is in the LONDON Borough of Barking and Dagenham.

If you want to be totally pedantic it was 1965 but when someone from Dagenham gives their address it's still Dagenham Essex not Dagenham London.

I've collected from there before.

It's big buisness this recycling lark you know, in fact it's about the only thing we still export!

When I was on containers we'd fill 40ft boxes with aluminum, steel, paper, and waste plastic and send it of to Dubai, Hong Kong, China etc etc. doesn't seem very "green" to me but Ho hum....

I've also sat reading a few bank statements in these places before now too! Just so you know, get a shredder!

Quick look on Duedil and their turnover for 2010 was about £8.3million. Running at a loss though!

Who said they did? I was simply complementing jagracer's comment by identifying the issue of differing administrative and postal boundaries.

There are villages on the Essex/Suffolk border, for example, which are in Suffolk County Council's administrative area, yet have Colchester (which is in Essex County Council's administrative area) postcodes.

Same goes for Dagenham. It is in a London borough administratively, but has a non-London postcode: Romford (RM).

But was a 1978/9 pump more or less efficient than a 1950s pump? The apples may not be strictly comparable?

To answer my own question, the major advances in pumps (beyond the capability of the underlying vehicle) have been in the pressure of the pump and the nature of what emerges from the hose. Modern appliances have high pressure pumps which deliver a water 'mist', proven to be far more effective than a simple jet of water for the same pumped volume. A 1950s appliance, such as a Green Goddess, sported a low-pressure pump, capable of being a very effective 'garden hose' but not as effective a fire-fighting system.

(And yes, before anybody mentions it, I know that the Green Goddess was designed as a pump first and a fire-fighting appliance second, but it is probably the most well-known example of a 1950s-era appliance. In fact, the GG capability was a clever and resilient way of providing a temporary and/or long-distance (multiple GGs daisy-chained over many miles) water pumping solution for all sorts of purposes, something which I suspect we've now lost?)

Thanks for that.

I've had a couple of rides in airport firefighting vehicles, one with a tremendous rate of acceleration. Mind you, when it gets to the plane it will have difficulty putting out a cigarette. It had two axles. There was one with three which was slower but had some degree of ability to fight a fire and there was one with five (possibly four) which, if the plane was on fire, you would hope was nearby as it was slow but powerful.

We had a fire in a car parking area on the east of the M23 near Gatwick. A real biggy. Lots of cars on fire. The local lads were all for creating a firebreak and letting it burn itself out. Not a good idea as the smoke was going all across the M23. Along came a couple of the big airport pumps with their latest spray type thingy (I didn't pay much attention to what the AFB bloke said) but even that merely slowed its progress, although rather dramatically. They looked around for a source of water and discovered a slurry pit.

Some AFB bloke had read that the fire-deading properties of, essentially, liquid st was rather good. (Who found that out?) So they sprayed it over cars on the perifery of the fire. I would say you wouldn't beleive the smell but, of course, you would. When the fire approached the slurried cars even it was put off.

Two problems arose. Firstly, the slurry dried to a very solid constituency and, secondly, the smell stayed around for days, blowing gently across the M23 and into the airport. When the smell of burnt kerosine returned, boy!, was it a relief.