Wading through nappies

Eco-design expert and Dumped guru, Rob Holdway, gives you the lowdown on our volunteers, rubbish and Dumped.

What did Sasha, Aaron, Jermaine and Ian learn from their day on the bins?

It’s the final week and with the end so close I wanted to make sure that the group put into practice what they learnt on the dump when they got home. Four of the group got to spend a morning with the binmen on the streets of Sutton. When they got back the lorry emptied its entire load on the dump and the volunteers had to wade through the smelly, mangled contents and separate the waste into different containers.

It was foul. An hour beforehand, this waste had been in people’s homes - on their breakfast tables, by their beds, in their front room. Now it was at the dump. And it really stank! Even with head-to-toe protection it’s a disgusting job. Wading through nappies, tampons and takeaways to find metal, glass, paper and plastic. It was clear to the whole group that this waste would prove almost impossible to sort.