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When waste disposal became respectable
Page 68
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IN THE 50 YEARS spanned by the Cleansing Service Group, of Botley, Southampton, waste disposal has progressed from something not to be mentioned in front of the children to a highly technical industry. As a fascinating commemorative booklet issued by the group recalls, the Deposit of Poisionous Waste Act, 1972, wrought a great change in the status of the disposal business.
"Waste disposal contractors, well used to being directed 'around the back,' now found themselves treading many a plush executive's carpet," the history observes. These plush executives had through pennypinching been the cause of dubious disposal practices in the past.
The group was founded by a fugitive of his family's wellknown Smithfield butcher's business, .J. T. Hart and Sons. Meat was not for Edgar (Bunny) Hart (who ran everywhere like a rabbit), so he took a BSc degree and roughed it in Chile and America.
Clean broke, he worked his passage back to England as a greaser in a decrepit liner and became a salesman for Shelvoke and Drewry. This was an introduction to cleansing vehicles, but his entry into waste disposal was far less auspicious with an 800gal Dennis cesspit emptier with solid tyres and a canvas sheet instead of a windscreen. But what else could one expect for £5?
Bunny was, I gather, careful with money and in the early days paid his men about £2.10s for a long and unpredictable week in all weathers. Thrift, however, was its own reward, because the group now claims to be "probably the biggest privately owned waste disposal company in the British Isles."