I got to spend today with one of Sortera’s trucks, picking up bags of waste for recycling.

Here’s John, the driver, ready to start the day, bright and early at 7 o’clock.

And here’s me, kitted with a hard hat and high-viz vest.

I always thought that they’d attach a hook to the straps of the bag and lift it that way. Ain’t no one got time for that! Turns out they use the scoop to grab and lift the bag. And it can be a delicate job, when the bag is right next to a building facade, or in between trees and lamp posts and other obstacles.

One of the jobs involved lifting the bag over a dense 3.5-metre hedge. A little bit challenging.

The truck has a veeery long arm.

When the container started filling up, John had to climb up into it so he could see where he was placing each bag, so he could use the container to its maximum.

When it was all full, we drove to the sorting facility, where we dumped all the bags. Another guy with a tractor took over and sorted the bags into their respective piles.

We drove off again to a fire-damaged school building to pick up chunks of roof metal. For John this was the best job of the day because he got to put his crane skills to good use, trying to pick everything up in as few lifts as possible.

And then back to the facility again, to dump all the metal in the metal pile.