Yet another... recycling plant fire
Discussion
Digga said:
V8mate said:
I think you got that the wrong way round. Look back through this thread and identify how many times a public sector facility - invariably operated by a private sector company - has appeared.
Weird that it's only private sector operators in these pages? And predominantly small ones with less PR risk too.
^This. Follow the money.Weird that it's only private sector operators in these pages? And predominantly small ones with less PR risk too.
mikelima said:
Given that the insurance industry has pretty much given up on the waste sector (understandably due to the numbers of fires) there is little opportunity nowadays for an insurance scam.
Not sure if serious?They need no insurance to work a good scam. They get paid to handle the waste - dispose of or recycle correctly - but instead of having to do any costly sorting, reprocessing or recycling, they just buy a box of Swan Vestas. Job jobbed. Tidy profit.
Digga said:
ot sure if serious?
They need no insurance to work a good scam. They get paid to handle the waste - dispose of or recycle correctly - but instead of having to do any costly sorting, reprocessing or recycling, they just buy a box of Swan Vestas. Job jobbed. Tidy profit.
Yes, serious. The comment was in respect of legit waste recycling operations that have suffered fires, not illegally stored waste. (I know - I ran one...)They need no insurance to work a good scam. They get paid to handle the waste - dispose of or recycle correctly - but instead of having to do any costly sorting, reprocessing or recycling, they just buy a box of Swan Vestas. Job jobbed. Tidy profit.
V8mate said:
I think you got that the wrong way round. Look back through this thread and identify how many times a public sector facility - invariably operated by a private sector company - has appeared.
Weird that it's only private sector operators in these pages? And predominantly small ones with less PR risk too.
Sorry V8, The public sector isn't in this industry - it's all private, because councils can't/wont "commercially trade" & they want to shift the huge infrastructure liabilities off their balance sheets. It's contracted out to Kier, Biffa, Veolia, Viridor, Saica, Amey etc, - the're the only size of company that can carry the losses (or offset against other subsidiaries, like construction in Kier's sake, for example). Look how often they all have balance sheet restructurings. It's unsustainable. Below them, large family-origin groups - Casepak, O'Brien, Ward, Bywater, Grundon - hundreds of them, right down to the level that ends up as waste4fuel in Bromley/Orpington. Weird that it's only private sector operators in these pages? And predominantly small ones with less PR risk too.
Yes "Predominantly small one's" suffer most, but are surely at more risk of industrial accident than large corporates/multinational's, purely from a resource perspective? Doesn't mean they are criminals - but I'm not for a second saying they dont exist.
On the "PR risk" front. Small companies do have it, surely? If you're a risk as far as your landlord/insurer/bank are concerned then tha't pretty s
tty PR in my book, no? (Not trying to be provocative here) If you have an accident/death/fire has the same effect - you get prosecuted/evicted/become uninsurable/get refused finance or credit? For disclosure's sake - I don't work for any of these guys: I buy from them & export. Happy to answer any follow up. Chs.CardinalFang said:
Sorry V8, The public sector isn't in this industry - it's all private, because councils can't/wont "commercially trade" & they want to shift the huge infrastructure liabilities off their balance sheets. It's contracted out to Kier, Biffa, Veolia, Viridor, Saica, Amey etc, - the're the only size of company that can carry the losses (or offset against other subsidiaries, like construction in Kier's sake, for example). Look how often they all have balance sheet restructurings. It's unsustainable. Below them, large family-origin groups - Casepak, O'Brien, Ward, Bywater, Grundon - hundreds of them, right down to the level that ends up as waste4fuel in Bromley/Orpington.
Yes "Predominantly small one's" suffer most, but are surely at more risk of industrial accident than large corporates/multinational's, purely from a resource perspective? Doesn't mean they are criminals - but I'm not for a second saying they dont exist.
On the "PR risk" front. Small companies do have it, surely? If you're a risk as far as your landlord/insurer/bank are concerned then tha't pretty stty PR in my book, no? (Not trying to be provocative here) If you have an accident/death/fire has the same effect - you get prosecuted/evicted/become uninsurable/get refused finance or credit? For disclosure's sake - I don't work for any of these guys: I buy from them & export. Happy to answer any follow up. Chs.
Agree with this. Muncipal waste is only a part of waste management, there is more commerdcial and industrial waste produced than MSW. Yes "Predominantly small one's" suffer most, but are surely at more risk of industrial accident than large corporates/multinational's, purely from a resource perspective? Doesn't mean they are criminals - but I'm not for a second saying they dont exist.
On the "PR risk" front. Small companies do have it, surely? If you're a risk as far as your landlord/insurer/bank are concerned then tha't pretty s
tty PR in my book, no? (Not trying to be provocative here) If you have an accident/death/fire has the same effect - you get prosecuted/evicted/become uninsurable/get refused finance or credit? For disclosure's sake - I don't work for any of these guys: I buy from them & export. Happy to answer any follow up. Chs.Digga said:
ot sure if serious?
They need no insurance to work a good scam. They get paid to handle the waste - dispose of or recycle correctly - but instead of having to do any costly sorting, reprocessing or recycling, they just buy a box of Swan Vestas. Job jobbed. Tidy profit.
Digga, not suggesting it's never happened in the entire history of the whole world, but the person who sold them the waste in the first place could be in real trouble nowadays if it goes t*ts up. The whole chain is accountable, right from whoever collects your bin, to brokers like me who buy it from them, to the agent in Asia I sell it to, to the mill in China who remakes your used Amazon boxes back into... new Amazon boxes. Any council, shopping centre, retail chain, or printer/packager who gave a contract to one man & his dog & an empty field/skip park would be crucified if it went wrong...and they got caught of course.They need no insurance to work a good scam. They get paid to handle the waste - dispose of or recycle correctly - but instead of having to do any costly sorting, reprocessing or recycling, they just buy a box of Swan Vestas. Job jobbed. Tidy profit.
Obviously one a*se & his dog can go door knocking round an industrial estate, pick up a few deals, get paid cash in advance, turn up in the truck, tip in a ditch, or apply a match, rinse & repeat until someone calls the EA hotline. It's just not endemic - it's a distribution curve like everything else in the world. Minority of superstars, minority of crooks, majority of the population distinctly average...
CardinalFang said:
The whole chain is accountable
But only as far as duty of care is concerned.If you have given the waste to a licensed contractor taking it to a licensed facility you have done as much as you can. You won't be prosecuted if the transfer station decide to have a bonfire.
Zoon said:
CardinalFang said:
The whole chain is accountable
But only as far as duty of care is concerned.If you have given the waste to a licensed contractor taking it to a licensed facility you have done as much as you can. You won't be prosecuted if the transfer station decide to have a bonfire.
Digga said:
And now we're getting down the the nub of the issue.
Correct, Digga: I'm not disputing that: the nub of the issue is crooks, scammers & fraudsters. I can set fire to my stockpile, walk off, fold the company & take the chance of becoming uninsurable, a credit risk & be refused the premises to rise phoenix-like from the ashes. (insert pun apology here...).Buuut, practically speaking that's no different from any other scam/fold/re-open/ringer/counterfeit operation in any other industry: they happen & they aren't the norm. If we're saying the industry target should be 0 incidents, then, again I'm 100% in agreement. Again, practically speaking it's an impossible target, even if the participants were 100% squeaky clean. It will happen & really, unless you invent a way for everyone to consume their own waste, it'll continue. As it happens, someone has, but its a few years off yet: http://www.myheru.com/
(not linked to them in any way - just know the inventor. He already has a spectacular car collection & after that makes him the richest man who ever lived I'll be suggesting some sort of "indecent Proposal" to Mrs Fang)
The numbers are big: UK exported nearly 1/2million tonnes of waste paper in May 2016 & that's up nearly 10% on May 2015. That tells you the industry is growing (which brings stresses & risks) & when you look at the processes from the inside you'd wonder how it doesn't happen more often. Cheers.
Zoon said:
But only as far as duty of care is concerned.
If you have given the waste to a licensed contractor taking it to a licensed facility you have done as much as you can. You won't be prosecuted if the transfer station decide to have a bonfire.
Fair point - confused context/brain fade on my part...If you have given the waste to a licensed contractor taking it to a licensed facility you have done as much as you can. You won't be prosecuted if the transfer station decide to have a bonfire.
Rinse and repeat...
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/aroun...
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/aroun...
Article said:
This is the third fire experienced by South Wales Wood Recycling in the last 12 months.
Their plant at Alexandra Dock in Newport experienced a fire that blazed for two months last autumn and piles of wood chip dumped on the site of a former power station in the Llynfi Valley by SWWR burned for almost two weeks earlier this year.
Their plant at Alexandra Dock in Newport experienced a fire that blazed for two months last autumn and piles of wood chip dumped on the site of a former power station in the Llynfi Valley by SWWR burned for almost two weeks earlier this year.
http://www.kentonline.co.uk/maidstone/news/recycli...
03 October 2016 by KentOnline
Seven fire engines were called after a suspected fire at a recycling plant.
The alarm was raised at the plant in Laverstoke Road, Allington in Maidstone at around 5pm, after an item - thought to be a flare - ignited when it was crushed in one of the large silos containing various metals.
There were fears the smouldering item could have caused a blaze that had the potential to spread to other waste.
03 October 2016 by KentOnline
Seven fire engines were called after a suspected fire at a recycling plant.
The alarm was raised at the plant in Laverstoke Road, Allington in Maidstone at around 5pm, after an item - thought to be a flare - ignited when it was crushed in one of the large silos containing various metals.
There were fears the smouldering item could have caused a blaze that had the potential to spread to other waste.
It's a bloody risky business. Shredding waste such as metal and plastics is often the most practical and cost effective way but it's very hard to ensure that nothing dodgy gets mixed in and explodes or catches fire - ie aerosols, compressed gas bottles, batteries
Domestic battery recycling is another nightmare, very hard to keep clean and dry in bulk especially as the general public treat battery bins like paper bins and mix all sorts of crap with them. These can go up all on their own.
People I'm aware of in the industry have to self-insure a large proportion of the risk, so not much to had from insurance scams!
Domestic battery recycling is another nightmare, very hard to keep clean and dry in bulk especially as the general public treat battery bins like paper bins and mix all sorts of crap with them. These can go up all on their own.
People I'm aware of in the industry have to self-insure a large proportion of the risk, so not much to had from insurance scams!
giveitfish said:
People I'm aware of in the industry have to self-insure a large proportion of the risk, so not much to had from insurance scams!
No one is saying its an insurance scamAll that happens is you get paid to take in a load of rubbish. You sort it into various piles then pay someone else to take away the appropriate piles.
If it accidentally goes up in smoke, surely somehow youre in profit
Been watching this going on for years. Pleased to see I'm not the only one.
I always figured that the clue, as always, is the old adage, "follow the money".
I have to be threatened and cajoled to stick ste in the right bin. Surely if this ste was worth anything to anyone I would be offered money for it rather than being fined for not giving it away? My conclusion is that it's worth jack st to anyone and firms are being financialy encouraged to collect it by dodgy grants and contracts in order to meet our EU obligations. The government then looks the other way when it self combusts.
I always figured that the clue, as always, is the old adage, "follow the money".
I have to be threatened and cajoled to stick s
te in the right bin. Surely if this ste was worth anything to anyone I would be offered money for it rather than being fined for not giving it away? My conclusion is that it's worth jack st to anyone and firms are being financialy encouraged to collect it by dodgy grants and contracts in order to meet our EU obligations. The government then looks the other way when it self combusts.Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff